Caleb Riedel tossed six shutout innings and Drew Reetz hit a three-run homer as Omaha opened its Summit League season with a 6-1 victory over newcomer St. Thomas Thursday at Tal Anderson Field.

Riedel (1-1) fanned eight while allowing only three hits as his streak of consecutive scoreless innings grew to 15. The lefty hasn't given up a run since the third inning of the USC game back on Feb. 27.

"I've just got to go out and do my job, basically, and give the team a chance to win," he said. "A conference weekend is obviously big, but you've got to treat it like every other game – go out, compete to the best of your ability and do everything you can to get the win."

Riedel struck out six batters in the first three innings, two of which ended with catcher Matt Baughn throwing out a UST runner trying to steal second base. He retired eight of the last nine men he faced.

"Caleb really set the tone of the game and gave us six strong innings," Omaha coach Evan Porter said. "Their guy did a really good job as well. Their a tough team, and we've got two more tough ones coming up."

St. Thomas starter Graham Laubscher (0-4) opened the first Division I conference game for the Tommies with consecutive 1-2-3 innings before giving up a pair of infield singles in the third. Baughn singled in a run for the Mavericks (8-12) in the fourth, however, then Reetz followed with a three-run blast to right.

The Omaha second baseman fell behind in the count before driving a 1-2 offering from Laubscher over the fence in right field. The opposite-field shot gave the Mavericks an insurmountable 4-0 advantage.

Mike Boeve doubled and scored on a Noah Greise single in the following inning, and Baughn doubled in a run in the sixth. The Reetz homer, though, was the big blast on a night when 11 Mavericks struck out.

"We weren't being very competitive with two strikes in the first half of the game. And then Drew Reetz came up," Porter said. "He was down 1-2 and put a really good swing on a pretty good pitch and it went over in right field. And that let us breathe a little bit. I think it carried over to the next couple of innings and we put up a couple of runs. But we had to fight for all those runs. They didn't give anything to us."

St. Thomas (3-13) manufactured its run in the seventh against reliever Jarrett Blunt.

Five Mavericks finished with two hits in the game: Boeve, Greise, Devin Hurdle, Baughn and Reetz.