The unwritten rule in baseball when a pitcher is throwing a no-hitter, is to not mention the pitcher is throwing a no-hitter.

Unfortunately for Richmond’s Luke Bullard, one of his teammates broke the unwritten rule, but Bullard still tossed a one-hitter and slugged a two-run home run to help lead the Raiders to a 12-1 victory over Westover in a Mid-Southeastern Conference contest Tuesday night at Raider Field.

“My off-speed pitches were working really good tonight,” Bullard said. “I wasn’t really thinking about my hitting, I was concentrating on my pitching.”

Bullard allowed a solo home run to Westover’s Richard Ringler to lead off the fifth inning and end his no-hit and shutout bids. On the evening, Bullard struck out eight, walked one and hit a batter.

“Luke pitched a great game for us,” coach Jason Norton said. “This showed he could pitch in a varsity game.”

The Raiders (12-5, 6-3) opened the scoring in the first on Dylan Davenport’s sacrifice fly, which scored Brent Franklin, who led off the inning with a single. Bullard followed with his two-run home run to score Josh Hilton and give Richmond a 3-0 advantage.

Westover’s poor defense allowed Richmond to break the game open in the bottom of the second.

Ricky Holden singled and Corey Wallace followed with a double to open the frame. Aaron Snead reached base safely on the first of four errors by Ringler in the inning, which allowed Holden to score. Another error by Ringler on Franklin’s grounder plated Wallace and put runners on the corner. Two wild pitches by Westover starter Julian Davis scored both Snead and Franklin.

Davenport doubled with one out and Bullard reached on an error by Ringler. Mike Nichols singled to score Davenport and courtesy runner Hunter Floyd. Nichols would close out the scoring in the inning when he crossed the plate on the fourth error by Ringler on Holden’s ground ball to give the Raiders a 10-0 lead.

After a scoreless third, the Raiders tacked on two more runs in the fourth. Nathan Heatherly’s double scored Davenport, who reached on an error. Ryan Jenkins’ run-scoring single knocked in Heatherly with the final run for Richmond.

“I told the guys before the game, we were going to wear our big game uniforms, because every game from here on out is a big game,” Norton said. “We came out with that mindset tonight. We can’t take anyone in the conference lightly.”

Richmond returns to action Friday at Pinecrest in a MSEC game.

n Contact sports editor Shawn Stinson at 997-3111, ext. 14; e-mail sstinson@yourdailyjournal.com