For much of the season so far, the Lockport baseball team has made a habit out of coming from behind to pick up victories.

On Thursday against SouthWest Suburban Conference rival Lincoln-Way Central, the Porters made sure they didn’t have to come back in a 5-1 victory.

Lockport took advantage of some Central miscues in the first inning and put three runs across before pitcher Anthony Farina even took the mound.

“Getting an early lead isn’t something we have done a lot this year,” Lockport coach Scott Malinowski said. “We have had a lot of comeback wins. It’s nice to know we can do that, but we have been emphasizing the last couple of weeks or so that it’s important to get out to the lead. That’s what we have been trying to do and give credit to our guys today. They executed.”

Lockport’s Kaden O’Leary led off the game with a slow roller toward third. The Central third baseman made a nice bare-handed pickup, but the ball was wet from the grass and it sailed over the first baseman’s head, allowing O’Leary to reach second. He later went to third on a balk and scored on a single by Drew Satunas.

Courtesy runner Jake Manzo then sped all the way to third on a wild pitch before Adam Kozak walked. Kozak walked and stole second, with Manzo scoring when the throw went into center field and Kozak reaching third. Kozak scored on a sacrifice fly to right by Jack Schiek for a 3-0 lead.

That was plenty for Farina.

The little lefty varied both his delivery and pitch speeds with great effectiveness and fired a complete-game three-hitter with eight strikeouts and no walks.

He allowed just an unearned run in the bottom of the seventh when Shawn Mowry reached on a throwing error, went to second on a wild pitch, reached third on a grounder to second by Christian Lovingfoss and scored on a sacrifice fly by Dev Sharma.

Lovingfoss had one of the other Central hits, a double in the fourth, while Tyler Arnold had the other hit in the bottom of the third when the Knights (11-10, 4-4) loaded the bases but did not score.

“I’ve been doing that with my windup since probably sixth grade,” Farina said about the variations in his throwing motion. “I’m not very big and I am never going to throw the hardest, so I have to do what I can to throw hitters off. Pitching is about upsetting the hitters’ timing, so I try to do that as much as I can.

“It felt really good to go out there with a three-run lead in the first inning. I knew I could just pound the strike zone. On a cold day like this, it was going to be hard to score.”

Lockport added another run in the top of the sixth when Schiek grounded to second to score Manzo, who was running for Satunas after he led off the inning with a walk. Manzo stole second and went to third on a wild pitch before scoring on Schiek’s grounder. The Porters tacked on their fifth run in the seventh on an RBI single by Frank Covelli, scoring Caden Russell, who had singled and stolen second.

“We were aggressive offensively,” Malinowski said. “We like to be aggressive on the bases, and on a day like today when there aren’t going to be a lot of runs scored, we knew we had to put guys in motion and get extra bases where we could.

“Our defense was outstanding today as well. The outfield ran a lot of balls down and we made the plays we should make. If you do that, you have a good chance of winning.”

Central’s Noah Sloan pitched well in the loss. He threw five innings, allowing just two hits and striking out two.

“We had a couple of misplays early and got down 3-0,” Central coach Ryan Kutt said. “We need to figure out how to get back on track. We’ve had about a five-game stretch here where it’s been on me. We have to be more prepared and ready to go from the start.

“A baseball season has peaks and valleys. We’re in a valley right now, and we need to keep working hard to get back up to a peak. I thought Noah Sloan threw the ball well for us today. He kept us in it and gave us a chance to win, and that’s all you can ask.”