FAIRHOPE, Alabama — Neither rain, nor rain, nor more rain could stop the Pirates from their appointed first round victory Friday night with a sweep over visiting Enterprise at Volanta Park.

Fairhope scored early and often in both games to win 11-2 as the home team in game one and 10-0 in five innings in the dryer but colder nightcap batting in the top of the innings as the visitor.

The Class 6A 2012 state runner-up and now 6th-ranked Pirates (28-8) move on to round two of the state playoffs while Enterprise calls it a season at 25-15.

“I was generally pleased with the improvement in our appearances at the plate tonight,” said Fairhope baseball coach Stu Fuller whose offense had waned this month by early and midseason Pirate standards. He credits pitching and defense for keeping the team in the hunt, but sees need for improvement in all phases.

“For the first time in April, I saw a lot of positives,” he said. “We were more patient at the plate and swung the bats well. Now we have a week to keep getting better. Our approach at the plate was also better than it has been the whole month of April. We’ve been working on it and it paid off tonight. We’ve still got some work to do. We’re not quite where we need to be to stay in this thing, but we played better tonight. Our defense played okay. We only had a couple of miscues, but it’s pretty easy to play defense when you are striking out a lot of guys.”

Corey Childress started the matinee for FHS, struck out nine Wildcats and closer Drew McCormick struck out two of the three he faced. In Game Two Beecher Faust struck out seven in three innings and reliever Easton Fuller four. At the plate Fairhope out hit the ‘Cats 11 to 3 and 11 to 6. The two teams faced off earlier with FHS winning 12-9.

“I know we had double-digit hits in each game,”Fuller said. “I’m proud of the guys. They worked hard all week. We knew Enterprise could not be taken lightly, they had a good year. Played each other early in the year, had a big lead but let them back in it. So I think that was on all our minds — what they are capable of. Tonight they had a few more miscues than us. Fortunately our didn’t hurt us as much as theirs.”

EHS had four errors in each game with six resulting directly or eventually in Pirate points. FHS had a three errors on the night, one allowing an unearned run.

Childress improved to 7-2 and worked out of a first-inning jam with runners in scoring position and no outs. He then struck out three of the next four to leave the bases loaded and finished with an eight-hitter. Faust’s shutout win upped his record to 7-0.

“Corey didn’t have his best stuff tonight,” Fuller said. “His command was not where it has been. Some of his pitches were up, and he didn’t hit his spots as often as he usually does. But he still battled out there. Beecher had a good solid outing. Easton and Drew came in and did their jobs. I’m just glad we got both of these (games) in tonight.”

Hunter Ellenburg hit a homer with two on in Game Two and had three more hits, stole a base and scored three times over both games. Cole Wainwright led off both games with hits and finished with four for the night, including an RBI double, an RBI single and an RBI Sacrifice Fly.

Jerrod Hathcock also had a pair of hits in each game and three RBIs for the series. Joey Wirtes drove in two with a double in the first contest and one in the second for three total RBIs. Childress had multiple hits including a double and an RBI and scored twice. Dylan Thomas, Dre Chaney and Clay Pitman also had hits for the Pirates.

The Wildcats’ Brendan Donovan drove in the only Enterprise runs of the night off three hits. Dustin Jordan and Tommy Stockhausen also had hits for EHS. Seth McWaters and Nathan Robinson absorbed the losses.

Fairhope advances to the second-round series and will play the winner of the Foley-Northview series. If Foley wins the Pirates will host the Lions beginning Friday but will travel to Dothan if the Cougars top Foley.