A three-run lead doesn't guarantee a win.

But with Tamaqua's strong pitching and Lehighton's lack of offense this season, that kind of advantage usually means Game Over.And on Tuesday, it was.The first three batters in the Blue Raiders lineup reached base and eventually scored. That proved to be more than enough for the visitors as they cruised to a 7-0 Schuylkill League Division 1 victory over the Indians."When you start a game against a better team by walking a guy and hitting a guy, you're asking for trouble," said Lehighton head coach Brian Polaha. "Then they get a hit and start scoring runs."We did play a better game today but on offense we're young and inexperienced and just not ready to hit against top-level teams like the Tamaquas, Pottsvilles and Blue Mountains. We're just not there yet. If we don't play a perfect game against them we're not going to win."The Raiders were far from perfect in their third game of the season, but solid pitching often makes up for other mistakes.Matt Minchhoff, Russell Blaker and Bo Rottet combined for a one-hitter and seven strikeouts to improve Tamaqua's record to 2-1."I was pleased with our pitching," said Raider mentor Jeff Reading. "That was Minchhoff's first outing and for four innings he was good for us. It's been tough. This is our third game and we haven't been able to get many people out there to throw so I'm just trying to get some people work. We have a lot of games coming up and will have some weeks with four or five games, so we need the arms."We manufactured some runs today, but we would have liked to manufacture some more. We would have liked to see us hit the ball better. But we were able to capitalize on some of their miscues and score some runs."After Bo Rottet and Nate MacDonald got on base to start the game, Brett Kosciolek's single plated the first run. An infield out brought home the second tally while an error made it 3-0.Tamaqua tacked on another run an inning later when Zach Coleman doubled and came home on MacDonald's two-out single. Another MacDonald RBI hit in the fourth inning made it 5-0 while single runs in the fifth (on an error) and the seventh (on a groundout) closed out the scoring."There were a couple plays we should have made," said Polaha. "Taylor (David) doesn't throw hard and I think they were a little off-balanced. They didn't hit a lot of balls hard."We only had one hit today. We lost 12 players from last year's roster and only have four guys with any varsity-game experience coming into the year ... This was a bad year for us to get into the Schuylkil League with all the Division 1 players and pitchers all over the place. I just hope they hang in there and as they see this level of play day in and day out we pick up some things and we're ready to compete by the end of the year."Lehighton didn't get any hits off Minchhoff in his four innings of work and managed its only knock in the home fifth when Gabe Wagner lifted a single to right. The Indians (0-3; 0-2) had only one baserunner reach third and on just one occasion did they have two runners on base at the same time.Tamaqua received a pair of hits from MacDonald and Jake Humes."It's a win," said Reading. "We made some mistakes ... but we take those things, learn from them and move ahead. They didn't hurt us today."Tamaqua 310 110 1 - 7 8 1Lehighton 000 000 0 - 0 1 2Minchoff, Blaker (5), Rottet (6) and Bates, Rother (6); David, Greene (6) and Wagner. W - Minchoff. L - David.