South Medford's Kaleb Long motions to the dugout after hitting a double during Game 1 against Willamette Monday at Harry & David Field in Medford.

You can plan and prepare all you want but until you’re able to test it, you don’t really know what you have.

South Medford’s baseball team passed its opening test with flying colors Friday, using a dominant starting effort from Evan Rhoden and opportune offense to churn out a 5-0 win over Glencoe at Harry & David Field.

After two promising years at Ashland High, Rhoden made quite an impression in his Panthers debut by allowing one hit in five innings against the Crimson Tide (0-2). The junior right-hander struck out seven, hit two batters and allowed only a fifth-inning leadoff single by Caden Kingsbury in 65 pitches.

“He just really set the tone for us,” said South Medford head coach Josh Moody. “He’s in the zone and pounds it and throws a ton of strikes, which definitely helps keep your defense engaged. His tempo is good. It’s strike one and he gets the ball back and he’s coming right at you for strike two. He looked great, very efficient.”

Rhoden gave way to Jake Lewis in the sixth inning as originally planned, and the sophomore finished off the shutout for South Medford (1-0) with one strikeout and two hit batters.

Offensively, South Medford’s Kaleb Long drove in three runs and fellow senior Kyle Cope scored twice with one RBI.

Cope ripped a leadoff single in the bottom of the first inning and Long followed with an RBI groundout to get the Panthers started, then Long added an RBI single during a two-run second inning to give South a comfortable cushion.

“Those two have been with us here as four-year starters for us so they’ve got a lot of experience and that definitely showed today,” said Moody. “It was just about not being too high or too low, they’re going to play consistent baseball. It’s definitely nice to have those guys here in their fourth year.”

Another boost for the Panthers came from the bottom part of the lineup, with Gannen Jones, Chance Ryan and Owen Leavens each scoring a run after reaching base a combined four times.

“Our team offense is quality at-bats and definitely those bottom guys were huge today in rolling it over for the top of our lineup,” said Moody.