High Point belted three home runs and Kevin Burch threw three innings of scoreless relief to lead the Panthers past Liberty 14-5 in Game 1 of the Big South Baseball Championship Wednesday in Rock Hill, S.C.

The Panthers (26-29) will face top-seeded Coastal Carolina (40-17) Thursday in a winners' bracket game at 5:00 pm. The Chants advanced with a 5-3 win over Radford.

HPU pounded out 13 hits, including homers by Andy Harney, John Cavanaugh, and Matt Richardson, to win its first-round game in the Big South tourney for the first time ever.

It was the second-highest run total this season for HPU, which beat Mount St. Mary's 15-2 on March 8 in High Point.

"This is a huge win for us," HPU head coach Sal Bando, Jr., said. "We came here to win this tournament -- not just to win a couple of games. It puts us closer to our goal."

The Panthers didn't wait long to jump on Liberty starter Jason Jones. Ryan Thiede laced a two-out single to left, and Harney crushed a pitch into the right-field gap which scored Thiede from first and gave High Point an early 1-0 lead.

Liberty came back in the bottom of the frame to grab a 2-1 lead on Joey Monahan's two-run homer to left off Riley Gostisha. But High Point took a 4-2 lead in the third on Harney's three-run homer to right, which scored Thiede and Chris Vinar.

Matt Hagen pulled the Flames within 4-3 on a fourth-inning sacrifice fly, but the Panthers got the run back an inning later on Kemp Smith's sac fly which scored Thiede to push the advantage back up to 5-3.

HPU broke it open with four runs in the sixth. A single to left by Cavanaugh scored Justin Keegan and Colin Cronin, and after Liberty intentionally walked Harney to load the bases, Smith came through with a single to right which plated Vinar and Cavanaugh to give High Point a 9-3 lead.

Cavanaugh added a solo homer in the eighth, and Richardson's first round-tripper of the season in the ninth (a three-run shot) to complete the scoring for HPU.

Burch (6-6) earned the win in relief of starter Riley Gostisha. The Panthers beat Liberty's Jason Jones (11-4), who leads the Big South in victories, for the second time in a week's time.

Harney was a double short of hitting for the cycle.