RALEIGH — The Cary Bulls American Legion baseball team used five two-run innings to blow by the Cary Colts on Wednesday, 10-1. The defending state junior legion champion Bulls, which played twice more over the weekend, now boast a 14-0 (3-0) record on the year.

Even with a perfect mark and a winning tradition that includes four of the past seven junior legion championships, coach Ron Powell has his doubts on whether or not his Bulls can make it five in eight this season.

For one, the Bulls’ four championships have all happened in even years — 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008. Superstition aside, Powell said his championship teams were his least talented — and this year’s team is loaded just as it has been in every odd year.

“We’re very talented, we’re one of the most talented teams around,” Powell said. “But we don’t win it when we have the most talent and there’s a lot of reasons for that.”

Powell said his championship teams tended to be chock-full of younger players who banded together with an underdog mindset, forming an even better whole than the sum of its parts.

With plenty of talent once again on this year’s Bulls’ roster, being able to keep his team grounded even as the wins pile up will be Powell’s biggest challenge.

“We have about eight or nine guys who will go on to play college baseball and a lot of time the focus tends to be on themselves rather than on the team and it hurts us during the season,” Powell said.

“We don’t get guys who want to bunt, give themselves up, sharing time and stuff like that and when it comes down to the end of the season our team isn’t as strong ... If they’ll come together as a team this year, it's going to be awfully hard for somebody to beat them. They can play.”

Starting pitcher Blair Betts — a rising senior at Athens Drive — pitched two innings of scoreless ball and hit a solo home run in the top of the second to lead the way for the Bulls.

Betts, along with three other Bulls pitchers, allowed just four Colts hits while striking out seven batters. Rising junior Max Povse — a basketball and baseball player at Green Hope — struck out three batters in two innings of work.

Povse, whose fastball tops out around 87 miles per hour, said he feels the team has good chemistry so far.

“We have such good team chemistry. Everyone gets along well, everyone supports each other,” Povse said. “It makes things easier.”

Max Schrock, who plays for Cardinal Gibbons, went 3-for-3 — all doubles — with two RBI’s as 10 different Bull players picked up hits.

For the Colts, Wednesday’s game was an improvement from the day before, when the Bulls allowed just one Colts’ hit and scored 10 first-inning runs en route to a 14-0 victory.

“We’ve improved because we’re finally swinging the bat, we didn’t have as many strikeouts tonight and we’re putting the bat on the ball,” Colts coach Dan Pike said. “We’re just hitting it at people rather than by people.”

“When I talked to them this evening I said, ‘guys this game was so much better than last night because we were in the game for seven innings.’”

The Colts, which are without any rising seniors, are the youngest of the three Cary legion teams, and the growing pains show in its 2-8 (0-3) record.

“Teams like the Bulls and a lot of the teams we play, they’re bigger, stronger and faster just because they’re older,” Pike said. “So right off the bat, we’re at a little bit of a disadvantage, so we have to play smarter baseball, and that’s definitely a challenge.”

The Bulls swept Northern Nash on Sunday. Four pitchers combined for a no-hitter in a 13-0 win in the day’s second game.