RALEIGH — Athens coach Joey Bell didn’t have to rattle his brain long to explain why his baseball team lost its conference opener 8-0 to Apex Friday.

Despite opening the season a perfect 5-0, his team just didn’t swing the bat like it had in previous contests.

“It was just an off day,” Bell said. “It was a good pitcher and we had an off day. We were 5-0 coming into the game, and we were hitting the ball every single game, and [Friday] we didn’t.”

The good pitcher was Apex’s Houston Hawley, who allowed no earned runs and struck out seven to pick up the win.

Apex coach Mike Valder said Hawley overcame some early walks and changed up his pitches just enough to keep Athens’ capable hitters from driving in runs.

“Houston did a great job keeping them off balance,” Valder said. “That’s a really tough lineup there and he really had to mix his pitches in well. When he walked a couple guys early on, in the leadoff innings, he battled trough it. Defensively, I thought we played pretty well behind him when we needed to.”

Hawley said having played against many of Athens’ players before gave him an advantage on the mound.

“I’ve been playing against all these guys since I was young, so I knew what they could do,” Hawley said. “I just had to go out and pitch the way I can because I knew they were going to hit some and I knew they were going to miss some, so I just tried to go out there and throw strikes.”

The first three innings proved defensive, as neither Hawley nor Athens’ Kyle Hathcock gave up a run and were backed by solid fielding from their teammates.

Momentum swung in Apex’s favor in the fourth, when third baseman Evan Oliver connected on a single with the bases loaded to send in the first run of the game. After Hathcock walked another Apex batter, centerfielder Derek Carlyle ripped a two-run double to give Apex a 3-0 lead going into the fifth inning.

“Offensively we got big hits in the big innings,” Valder said. “Their kid [Hathcock] did a good job. He got ahead early on. And it took us stepping back a little bit and being a little more patient at the plate. I think that’s what finally solved the puzzle.”

In the fifth, Hawley picked up an RBI that brought in shortstop Chris Diaz to make the score 4-0.

With his team down 4-0 going into the seventh inning, Bell pulled Hathcock and put Travis Lush to close the game for the Jaguars, mostly to rest Hathcock with the team already down, Bell said.

Lush gave up four runs in the seventh, as Hawley drove in a pair of runs and first baseman Ryan Frankoff and third baseman Josh Wilkinson added RBIs of their own.

Bell said he was more concerned with his team’s inability to hit early in the game than the poor performance in the seventh inning. Still, Bell is confident his team will get back to hitting well as the season progresses.

“We’ll be fine. It’s one of those days we didn’t hit the ball. We’ll bounce back and be ready to go next week,” Bell said.

Though Apex (2-1, 1-0) picked up the conference win, Valder said his team has areas to improve as conference play continues.

“We didn’t take advantage of some opportunities early in the game and we need to work on some of our fundamental stuff. And we’ve been working on it and I think the boys know what the expectation is,” Valder said. “But in our first conference game, and with the fact we haven’t played a whole lot, we’re only going to get better, hopefully, as we play more games.”