The delay proved worth the wait for the Aberdeen Smittys Tuesday night.

After three cancelations of their home opener in the past 10 days, the Smittys finally got to take the diamond at Fossum Field and rolled to a 15-1 seven-inning victory over Lake Norden-Badger in American Legion baseball action.

“It’s always fun to play at home. It’s been hard,” said Smittys pitcher Grant Beyer of the lack of recent games, “but it’s good to be back out here.”

Beyer set the tone with a solid performance on the mound, allowing just one run on three hits, while striking out seven batters.

“The first inning I was just going to go out there and see what they were doing,” Beyer said of facing the opposing batters. “I was throwing strikes and I got a couple of strikeouts. I got a little confidence and kept throwing strikes.”

Beyer said one pitch in particular was affective in his four innings of work.

“The fastball was really working,” Beyer said. “I felt like I was locating it pretty well, and an occasional change up in there to throw them off a little bit.”

Meanwhile, it did not take long for the Smittys to get going on offense.

The hosts scored five times in the bottom of the first inning, three runs coming in on RBI singles by Cooper Eisenbeisz, Phillip Zens and Zane Backous.

The Smittys had just one extra-base hit on the evening, but thrived on playing small ball throughout the contest.

“That’s what I tell them all the time, too, home runs are cool, but I think singles are cooler,” said Smittys coach Nathan Gonnelly, “just getting guys on base and moving them around, and just getting that on-base percentage up.”

Zens added another RBI single in the second inning on his way to a four-hit, three-RBI evening.

“Just finding ways to put the ball in play, that’s really all you can do, especially on our field,” Zens said, “you find some crazy hops out here.”

Zens delivered his third run-scoring single of the game in the fifth inning.

“It’s good to have a guy in your lineup like that to kind of keep things rolling a little bit,” Gonnelly said, “show by example, rope the ball, get on base, let the boys kind of rally behind you a little bit.”

Zens not only was a force at the plate, but also anchored a solid defensive effort from his shortstop position as well.

“He had a couple of good plays in the field, too,” Gonnelly said. “He almost made a couple of plays over at second base tonight. He does a heckuva job.”

Zens said it’s easier to play defense when pitchers are throwing strikes. In addition to Geyer’s seven strikeouts, Donnie Soderlund fanned three in relief.

“I thought our pitchers did a really good job of throwing strikes. … That helps us a lot on defense, just to keep the game moving,” Zens said.

Aberdeen was aggressive on the basepaths the entire night, producing six stolen bases in all.

“A lot of that comes with finding ways to time up the pitcher,” Zens said. “If we get a good jump on him, we don’t give the catcher a chance to throw us out.”

The Smittys play on taking advantage of their speed this season and were able to work on that Tuesday evening.

“That’s just good for our guys too, just to get that experience,” Gonnelly said. “If the pitcher is slow to the plate, hey take advantage of it, swipe third base, swipe second, do what you have to do.”

Backous added two hits for the Smittys, while Eisenbeisz and Casey Vining each drove in a pair.

Aberdeen will head to Groton for a 4 p.m. doubleheader on Friday.

“It will be very good for us, again just to kind of see more live pitching, kind of getting us in the groove for the season,” Gonnelly said, “because I feel like this week is when baseball starts for us. We’ve got a lot of games coming up now, so that will be good.”

Lake Norden-Badger 001 000 0 – 1 3 6

Aberdeen Smittys 520 134 x – 15 11 1

Ryker Warrington, Turner Stevenson (5) and Cristhian Rodriguez; Grant Beyer, Donnie Soderlund and   . 2B – Aberdeen Smittys, Charlie Phillips.