APPLETON, Wis. -- The home opener for the Lawrence University baseball team was worth the wait.
    The Vikings finally got to play some home games on Wednesday at Don Hawkins Field, and Lawrence powered to a Midwest Conference sweep of Ripon College.
    Lawrence homered four times in a 24-4 seven-inning win in the opener, and the Vikings bashed three more homers in a 13-3 eight-inning victory in the nightcap. Lawrence (19-6, 11-0 MWC) also ran its school-record win streak to 11 games. 
    In the first game, Edan Perez went 3-for-4 with a grand slam and a two-run homer and finished with seven runs batted in to lead Lawrence's 15-hit attack. William Zatkowski went 2-for-2 with a pair of doubles, drove in three runs and scored three times. Tate Hartlaub was 2-for-3, drove in four runs and scored two runs. 
    Zach Leslie homered, drove in two runs and scored three times, and Taylor Freeman homered, scored twice and drove in two runs. William Polanco doubled and drove in three runs for the Vikings.
    Lawrence scored five times in the first as Perez belted a two-run homer, and Leslie smashed a solo shot. Lawrence pushed its lead to 8-1 in the second as Freeman homered and Zatkowski had a two-run double.
    The Vikings blew the game open in the third with eight runs, highlighted by Perez's grand slam, for a 16-1 lead. Lawrence added seven more runs in the fourth with Hartlaub picking up a two-run single. 
    Nate Leonard pitched the first four innings for the Vikings and allowed just one hit and no earned runs to pick up the victory. Stephaune Haylock made his collegiate pitching debut for the Vikings and tossed one inning of relief to finish the game.
    In the second game, Leslie went 2-for-4 with a pair of homers, drove in four runs and scored twice. Parker Knoll went 2-for-4 with a double, drove in two runs and scored twice for the Vikings. Hartlaub went 2-for-4, scored twice and drove in two runs, and Perez homered, scored twice and drove in two runs.
    The Vikings scored four times in the second as Knoll picked up a two-run double and Perez smacked a two-run homer to grab a 5-0 lead. Ripon (6-13, 3-5) came back with three runs in the third, but Leslie hit a solo homer in the bottom half of the inning to push the lead back to 6-3.
    Ripon ran itself out of two innings when a runner was cut down in the fifth trying to score on a wild pitch and a runner was thrown out at home in the sixth. 
    Lawrence then broke the game open with four runs in the seventh. Hartlaub's two-out infield single drove in a run, and Leslie then dropped the hammer with a three-run homer to push the lead to 10-3. The Vikings ended the game in the eighth with three runs, the final two coming on Polanco's two-run, walk-off single.
    Brandon Brust tossed three innings of one-hit relief, struck out four and walked one, to pick up the victory. Cam Ruth tossed three scoreless innings of relief for his second save of the season.
    Lawrence returns to action this weekend when it travels to the University of Chicago for a three-game series.