Four home runs in the early innings helped propel the Arizona Wildcats (14-14, 3-7) to a 9-3 victory over the visiting Washington Huskies (14-10, 5-5) on Friday night at Hi Corbett Field.

The Wildcats jumped out to an early advantage and never surrendered the lead to win the series opener. The Cats smacked back-to-back home runs in the first and third innings to race out to a 5-0 lead, and plated two in the fifth and seventh innings to close to door on a 9-3 series-opening win.

Austin Wells and Nick Quintana got the party started in the first inning – Wells slammed a two-run dinger over the top of the Terry Francona Hitting Center on an 0-2 pitch to give Arizona a 2-0 edge and Quintana followed by lacing a solo home run off the face of the video board in left field to expand the lead to 3-0.

Quintana was part of both back-to-back jacks, as he rocketed another solo homer off the video board with one out in the third inning, setting up a solo shot off the bat of freshman Dayton Dooney. It was the fourth multi-home run effort of Quintana’s career.

Arizona’s offense was led by Wells (4x5, 3 R, 3B, HR, 3 RBI), who put together a four-hit night that included the two-run homer, an RBI triple in the eighth inning, and a pair of singles. Matthew Dyer (2x5, 2 R, 2B), Quintana (2x3, 2 R, 2 HR, 2 RBI, 2 BB), Dooney (2x4, R, HR, 2 RBI, BB), and Cameron Cannon (2x5, 2B, 2 RBI) all collected multi-hit performances.

But it wasn’t just the hitting that clicked for the Cats, as southpaw Randy Labaut spun a strong start and Vince Vannelle was lights-out in relief.

Labaut (3-3) earned his third win of the year after working 6.0 innings and limiting the Huskies to just three runs – he struck out six batters along the way. Vannelle relieved Labaut and tossed 3.0 scoreless, hitless frames while fanning five batters to earn his first save of the season.

The Wildcats go for the series win on Saturday afternoon at Hi Corbett Field. First pitch is slated for 3:05 p.m. MST and the game will be televised on Pac-12 Network.