The Washington baseball team needed a win badly.

After losing their last six games and only scoring 11 runs in the span, while giving up 46, the Huskies definitely needed one to at least get back on track against a surprising Gonzaga team that had already beaten them twice.

And, finally, when the UW’s season depended on it the most, they came up big, as the rejuvenated Huskies defeated the Bulldogs 14-7 yesterday to avoid the season sweep at the hands of the Zags and to display what had been missing for so long — their bats.

“The pitching was nowhere near the quality that we saw against Arizona State or Stanford,” said UW head coach Ken Knutson. “[This] was a mid-week series, and you tend to see more pitchers you can handle, but I thought we were more aggressive and relaxed a little more at the plate.”

The Huskies got on the board first in the top of the third inning, when Doug Cherry smacked a double down the right field line off Gonzaga pitcher Tyler Olson to drive in Caleb Brown from second base.

But the Zags promptly struck back in the bottom half of the inning against UW starter Tyler Cheney to go up 2-1 on an RBI ground out and an RBI single.

Then, finally, the UW offense that had been absent for so long kicked in and generated leads that the Huskies were able to hold for the rest of the game.

With two outs and two men on for the Huskies in the fourth inning, Brendan Gardner-Young singled to right field, allowing Andy Bethel to score from second, also chasing Olson from the game.

Cherry came up right after and promptly hit a three-run home run to give the Dawgs a little more breathing room at 5-2.

But Gonzaga kept battling back, scoring just about every time the Huskies did.

The Zags drove in two more runs in the bottom of the fourth to prompt Knutson to remove Cheney from the game after giving up four runs on five hits in just 3 2/3 innings of work — the 10th time in a row a UW starter has failed to go at least five innings.

“It’s a concern,” Knutson said. “You got to get more out of your starters, and this weekend, I anticipate that we will.”

Despite another lacking outing by a starting pitcher, the Huskies more than made up for it at the plate later in the game.

Washington scored three more in the top of the fifth and entered the sixth inning with a tight 8-7 lead, after the Zags answered the Huskies with three of their own.

But it was the seventh inning that really opened the game up for Washington (11-19, 1-5 Pac-10), again with two outs. Gonzaga left fielder Mark Castellitto misplayed a fly ball hit by Jacob Clem, allowing both Brown and Kyle Conley to score.

And after a Brady McGuire walk, Jake Rife added a little insurance by hitting a three-run home run to give the Huskies the 13-7 lead going into the seventh-inning stretch.

From there, it was just a matter of holding the Zags at bay, which the UW relief corps did with fair success.

Geoff Brown came in for Cheney and gave up two runs in two innings of work, then Seth Haehl, Paul Dickey and Brian Pearl combined to pitch scoreless seventh, eighth and ninth innings to give the Huskies the taste of victory that they haven’t had for two weeks.

“It was important,” Knutson said. “We had to win this one to get a winning streak going.”

Reach reporter Allen Wagner at sports@dailyuw.com.