The Mehlville Senior High School baseball team has jumped out with a solid start to the 2006 season, riding a five-game winning streak.

“We’ve gotten out to a great start,” Panthers head coach Jim Kern said. “But it’s important that we need to take it one day at a time and come prepared for that particular day. We can’t overlook any of the games we play this year.”

The Panthers broke a 3-3 tie in the top of the seventh inning with a two-run outburst to take a 5-3 win over Alton on March 29.

Mehlville starting pitcher Barry Gregg threw 21/3 innings, giving up two runs on four hits. The junior hurler also struck out one batter and walked one in his second start of the season.

“Barry’s still continuing to get his arm ready to pitch,” Kern explained. “We’re realizing that Barry had very good movement on the ball and will be a huge key to our pitching this year.”

Mehlville’s Kevin Mahler received the win over Alton as he gave up just one run in 32/3 innings pitched. But the most impressive stat of Mahler’s performance was that the junior struck out 10 batters and walked just three.

“When he was in the game, he was in for a total of 11 outs and threw 10 strikeouts,” Kern said. “He was very impressive in that game.”

Mahler also was solid at the plate as he went one-for-four with two runs batted in and one stolen base.

Also solid at the plate was Mehlville senior center fielder Steve Thurmond, who went three-for-three with one double, one stolen base and one sacrifice. Thurmond came into the game in the bottom of the seventh inning with the bases loaded as a relief pitcher and proceeded to strike out one batter to grab the save.

“Right now he’s seeing the ball well and hitting the ball well,” Kern said. “He got the save in probably the biggest pressure game of the year.”

The Panthers are back in action at 4:15 p.m. Friday when they travel to CBC.

“CBC is a very tough team and they also beat Vianney by four runs this season,” Kern said. “I think that they are one of the better teams in the area this year.”