Tourists Rally Against Crawdads to Win the Series

HICKORY- The Asheville Tourists defeated the Hickory Crawdads 5-3 on Friday night to win the series against their northern division rivals two games to one. Asheville has won three of their last four road games and this one took a little bit of everything to nail down.
After falling behind 1-0 in the third, Daniel Montano drove in Willie MacIver from first base with a double in the fourth. The Tourists added two more in the fifth on a single by Will Golsan and a sacrifice fly off the bat of Terrin Vavra .

Hickory rallied back to score twice in the sixth and tie the game 3-3; however, Derrik Watson came in to quell the threat. Watson forced the Crawdads to leave the bases loaded in the sixth and finished off the seventh inning with back-to-back strikeouts.
In the eighth the Tourists loaded the bases with one out for John Cresto . The third-baseman did exactly what he was supposed to do and put the ball in play with a soft ground ball to second.
The Crawdads had no chance to turn a double-play aside from trying to tag MacIver between first and second base. MacIver eluded the tag, forced a rundown, and allowed two runs to score on the play. MacIver ended up back on first base as he escaped the pickle.
Raymells Rosa and Alexander Martinez handed the final two innings on the mound and preserved the victory for Asheville. Colten Schmidt did not factor in the decision but pitched excellent in his second start for the Tourists. Schmidt lasted five innings and surrendered only one run. Schmidt also did not walk a batter for the second straight start.
Up next for Asheville is a home series versus the Greenville Drive. The Tourists and the Drive have yet to face each other this season so this will kick-off the season series between the two southern division rivals. Saturday's contest at McCormick Field will begin at 6:05pm.