The strikeouts piled up so fast, the Butler BlueSox intern perched down the left field line ran out of “Ks” to put up on the fence.

Butler pitchers whiffed 19 Slippery Rock batters to set a club record on the way to a 7-4 Prospect League win at Pullman Park Wednesday night.

BlueSox starting pitcher Andrew Elliott, making his first start of the season, set a franchise record with 12 strikeouts in his six innings of work.

It was just the kind of boost the BlueSox needed after losing four straight games after a 3-0 start.

“It feels good,” said Elliott, who just finished up his sophomore season at Wright State University in Ohio. “For me, it was more about coming out in my first outing and helping the team end a losing streak.”

Elliott was masterful from the start, using a plus fastball to go with a change-up to keep the Sliders' hitters off balance.

He struck out at least one batter in every inning and mowed down the side in both the fourth and sixth frames.

The right-hander walked two and gave up five hits, but the strikeout routinely got him out of trouble.

The only thing that could stop Elliott was his pitch count; he reached 101 after the sixth inning and called it a night.

“Since it was my first outing, they didn't want to go over that (pitch count),” Elliott said. “I didn't want to overdo it.”

The high number of Ks even caught Elliott by surprise.

At Wright State, he struck out only 29 in 54 1/3 innings of work this spring.

“I wouldn't call myself a strikeout pitcher. No way,” he said. “I was today, though.”

And that did not please Slippery Rock manager Shawn Pynn.

“Their guy did a good job. He was ahead of us in a lot of situations,” Pynn said. “We just didn't make the adjustments that we needed to.

“It's extremely, extremely disappointing,” Pynn added. “These are Division I guys mostly, and they weren't making adjustments and that's unacceptable.”

Butler (4-4) gave Elliott some quick run support with a two-run first inning, keyed by the top three hitters in the BlueSox lineup — Elliott Caldwell, Chris Raskey and Kyle Petty — who led off the bottom of the inning with three consecutive hits.

The trio went 6-for-15 with three RBI in the game.

Butler tacked on two more runs in the bottom of the fourth inning and led 5-0 after six.

Jeff Courter relieved Elliott, but managed to get just one out before a line drive off his lower leg with the bases loaded chased him from the game.

Ryan Abernathy followed with a bases-clearing double, but Adam Dian got out of the inning with a pair of strikeouts to preserve a 5-4 Butler lead.

Dian struck out seven in 2 2/3 innings to pick up a save.

“(Slippery Rock) is a very, very good hitting team,” said Butler manager Anthony Rebyanski. “We got some good outings. Hopefully this keeps up.”

Butler tacked on a pair of insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth inning thanks to a two-out, two-run double by Caldwell, who was thrown out at third to end the inning.

Rebyanski is hoping for more consistency after already seeing a three-game winning streak and a four-game losing skid in the first 10 days of the season.

“We went through the same thing last year,” he said. “We struggled to catch the win three, lose one, win two, lose one stretches. These guys came in today with a lot of fire and a lot of spunk. We need to carry that into every game.”

Slippery Rock 000 000 400 — 4 10 3

Butler 200 201 02x — 7 11 1

W: Andrew Elliott 6IP (12K, 2BB). L: Jim Miller 6IP (3K, 2BB).

Slippery Rock (2-5): Trent Wooldridge 2-1B RBI, Mike Porcaro 1B, Ryan Abernathy 2B 3-RBI, Derek Peake 1B, Dan Hurlimann 1B, Radley Haddad 1B, Alex Lang 2-1B, Pat Guinane 1B

Butler (4-4): Elliott Caldwell 2-1B 2B RBI, Chris Raskey 2B, Kyle Petty 2-1B 2B, Eric Hess 2-1B 3-R, Neal Jacobs 2B, Justin Brozick 1B 2-RBI

Today: Richmond at Butler; Chillicothe at Slippery Rock