CONWAY, Ark. _ The University of Central Arkansas Bears rallied once Friday night but it was not enough as the Creighton Blue Jays scored a 12-5 victory in the series opener at Bear Stadium.

The Bears (2-6) trailed 3-0 after three innings but tied the game with two runs in the fourth inning and another in the sixth. But after that, the timely hits never came as UCA left the bases loaded in the sixth and seventh innings, and left two more on in the eighth. For the game, 13 Bears were left on the base paths.

In the fourth, junior center fielder Coby Potvin led off with a single to right and Hunter Strong followed with a walk. A fielding error loaded the bases and Jay Anderson's sacrifice fly to center scored Potvin with UCA's first run. Josh Somdecerff followed with an RBI base hit to left to close the gap to 3-2.

In the sixth, catcher William Hancock singled through the left side and Somdecerff reached on another of Creighton's five errors. Eddy Sanchez walked to load the bases and T.J. Black followed with another walk to bring in Hancock with the tying run.

The Blue Jays (5-2) then exploded for five runs on five hits and an error in the top of the eighth. UCA got two runs back in the bottom of the inning on a Creighton error and an RBI ground out by Tyler Smith. But the Blue Jays tacked on four more runs in the ninth to put the game out of reach.

Potvin and Strong finished with two hits each for the Bears, while Clark Brinkman had three of CU's 12 hits from the leadoff spot. UCA's Ross Rogers (0-1), pitching in relief, retired the first nine batters he faced from the fifth through seventh innings, but gave up a leadoff single in the eighth, which proved to be the game-winning run.

Creighton reliever Mitchell Boyer (1-0) got the victory with one inning out of the bullpen.

Game 2 of the series is set for noon Saturday.