The recipe for coming back from a dreadful loss is to hit your next opponent hard -- and early. Mesa Mountain View's baseball team did that after a slight top-of-the-first glitch on Thursday afternoon.

Spotting Horizon two runs on three hits and an error, Mountain View answered with five runs in its half of the frame and went on to clobber the Huskies, 10-2, in a Division I game at Mountain View.

"We didn't play well, kind of gave our last game away (8-6 loss to Desert Ridge on Tuesday)," Mountain View coach Mike Thiel said. "We played much better today."

Mountain View (12-5 overall, 5-2 power-point games) rapped out five hits in its half of the first to take control. Singles by Tyler Wiehl, Sterling Smith and Willie Ethington acounted for the first run off Horizon starter Dean Jackson. Two-out hits by Jacob Boehme (a two-run double) and Jeff Wooton (two-run single) capped the rally.

Mountain View starter Landon Russo, hit hard in the first, gave up three hits and no runs over the next four innings. Trent Oldroyd followed with two shutout innings of relief.

"Landon did a good job of locating his pitches," Thiel said. "When he does that, he's tough."

Mountain View's defense, which had a horrible day Tuesday, turned two double plays behind Russo (one in the second and one in the third). Catcher Zac Hyzdu, who had a big day at the plate, threw out a base stealer in the  fourth to short-circuit a potential rally in the top of the fourth.

Hyzdu, who along with Smith had three hits, delivered the key blow in a three-run fourth with a two-out, two-run single. Horizon walked the Toros top offensive threat -- Willie Ethington -- to get to Hyzdu. Hyzdu finished with three RBI.

Horizon dropped to 8-9 overall and 3-4 in power-point games. The Huskies have struggled of late, particularly at the plate in power-point games. They've lost three straight and tallied only four runs in losses to Brophy, Pinnacle and Mountain View -- three solid teams.

"We have a lot of work to do," Horizon coach Eric Kibler said. "We're not being physical, aggressive at the plate. They hit it good and played a lot better game."

Horizon catcher Mike McNamara was the only Husky with multiple hits -- a pair of singles. Boehme and Wiehl had two hits each to go along with the three-hit efforts from Smith and Hyzdu.

Mountain View is in the midst of a tough four-game stretch that began last week with Desert Vista, then this week with Desert Ridge and Horizon and finishes Friday with Desert Mountain. Desert Mountain sports a 12-7 record overall and 5-3 ppg mark after a 7-6 loss to Chaparral on Thursday.