RICHMOND, Va. – Powered by a strong outing on the mound from Jackson Holmes, fourth-seeded Saint Louis handled the pace throughout the Atlantic 10 Baseball Championship opener against No. 5 overall Richmond, generating an early lead via some quick offense en route to a 6-3 decision Tuesday afternoon at The Diamond.

Victory in hand, Saint Louis (31-21) secures a position in the second round winner's bracket, matching up versus top-seeded Saint Joseph's in Wednesday's initial contest, with first pitch set for 11:00 am. Richmond (26-27) will face No. 7 Rhode Island Wednesday evening at 7:00 pm in an elimination game.

The Billikens did their damage right off the bat, with three runs in the first, spurred by an RBI gorundout by Cam Redding that scored Hayden Moore. A Cole Smith single drove in Ethan Sitzman, and then scored himself two batters later on a Cameron Swanger single.

SLU added another Smith-Sitzman RBI single in the fourth, and then in the bottom of the fifth, it was Sitzman's bat that pushed two runs across, courtesy of Moore and Swanger. Smith was 3-for-4 to lead Saint Louis, while he and Sitzman each had two RBI.

The Spiders scattered a trio of runs, all by Jordan Jaffe, across the middle innings in an attempt to rally, staring with a wild pitch in the fourth that scored Jaffe, who reached on a four-pitch leadoff walk. Jaffe scored again in the sixth on a Christian Beal single. The final UR run came in the eighth, again a Beal-Jaffe connection, this time a gorundout for Beal. Beal had a team high two RBI and he was one of five Spiders with a hit in the game.

Jackson Holmes (3-0) threw 7 1/3 innings with five hits and four walks allowed to get the win. Three runs crossed the plate on his watch, but only one was earned. Jack Weber got the save, his third of the year, for 1 2/3 innings pitcher with two strikeouts.

Jeremy Neff (3-1) suffered the loss, throwing 3 2/3 innings with six hits, four runs and three walks allowed. Neff struck out two Billikens.