By Jeremy Stafford -- Daily Sports Correspondent

STRASBURG — Despite managing only five hits against Manassas Park on Friday night, Strasburg took advantage of a dozen walks en route to an 8-3 win over the Cougars.

Starting pitcher Timmy McDonald earned the win for Strasburg, going all seven innings and striking out 10 batters, including three in the seventh. Although McDonald fell into a high pitch count early in the game, he gave up only four hits.

"Timmy can go deeper than anyone we've got," Strasburg coach Jeff Smoot said. "He felt pretty good, I think, so we were comfortable with sending him back out there."

Manassas Park relief pitcher Gipper Breeden had trouble finding the strike zone for most of the night, but still managed to strike out six batters in 4 2/3 innings.

In the second inning, the Cougars were on the brink of scoring, as Nate Hoffa and Chris Jewell stole third and second, respectively, on the same play, but McDonald struck out the No. 7 and No. 8 hitters, ending the inning.

Amazingly, Strasburg scored three runs in the second inning without getting a single hit. Jordan Reynolds, Mike Murphy, and Alex Pfeiffer loaded the bases on three walks; they all scored on three additional walks.

Down 3-0, the Cougars could no longer afford to risk trading outs for bases, and they began to play more conservatively.

"When we got down we had to play it safe, not give up the outs, and try to keep the runners on base," Manassas Park coach Mark Rendell said. "We just kind of backed off a little bit."

The Rams continued to score in the fourth inning, as Zach Cover walked to first base and then advanced to second on a single by McDonald. Two walks later, the bases were loaded again, and Cover scored. McDonald scored when Derek Buckley was hit by a pitch.

"There's more than one way to score," Smoot said. "You don't always have to put three or four hits together in order to do it."

Manassas Park had its chances to score throughout the game, putting runners in scoring position in every inning except the first, but the Cougars had trouble stringing hits together. They left seven runners on base.

"The last game we came out in the first inning and scored four runs," said Rendell, whose Cougars had defeated the Rams 4-0 earlier in the season. "Usually that's a big boost for us when we score first. Today we came out slow with the bats and we weren't as patient at the plate as we should have been."

Strasburg scored another three runs in the fifth inning when, with the bases loaded, Riley McDonald slammed a double into deep center field, scoring Spencer Haines and Josh Kibler. Then with only one out, Jordan Reynolds threw down a sacrifice bunt to score Timmy McDonald.

Although the Rams scored eight runs in the game, they stranded 14 runners on base, and left the bases loaded three times.

"We liked to have gotten a few of those in," Smoot said. "The reality of it is, if you score eight runs, you ought to win. Potentially, we could have had a little higher output, but we couldn't get some of them in."

Down 8-1 with two outs in the seventh inning, the Cougars rallied to score twice before Strasburg finally mustered the final out of the game.

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