Hickory Ends Greenville’s Win-Streak with 8-5 Victory 

Greenville, S.C. – Hickory scored in six innings while their pitching staff fanned 14 Drive batters enroute to an 8-5 win to end Greenville’s seven-game winning-streak Friday night at Fluor Field.

The Drive compiled 10 hits on the night, one double, and drew six walks. Brandon Howlett led the team with four hits, all singles. Tyler Esplin, three hits, and Christian Koss, two hits, also registered multi-hit efforts. Koss, Cam Cannon, Nick Sogard, Alan Marrero and Cole Brannen compiled RBI. Cannon extending his hitting-streak to 11-games—the longest by a Drive player this year.

Grant Gambrel started for Greenville and was tagged with the loss after relenting five runs on eight hits and two walks over 2.0 innings.

For the third-straight night, the Crawdads starter fanned eight batters. Starter Zak Kent earned the win, working 5.0 innings and allowed no runs on five hits and no walks. Jean Casanova got the save after hurling 1.0 inning with three strikeouts.

The Crawdads scored two runs in the first inning on a Frainyer Chavez RBI double and David Garcia RBI groundout to take a 2-0 lead.

Hickory extended its lead in the second inning. Jake Guenther ripped an RBI double to left and Jake Strahm RBI single to right, giving the away team a 4-0 lead.

With the bases loaded, Scott Kapers was hit-by-pitch to extend the Crawdads lead to 5-0.

Hickory scored in its fourth-straight inning on a Kole Enright RBI single to center. The Crawdads led, 6-0, in the fourth.

Greenville finally tallied its first runs in the sixth inning. Howlett lined a one-out single to left and got to third after back-to-back walks by Tyreque Reed and Wil Dalton. That brought up Sogard who drew a bases-loaded walk—the third-straight of the inning. A fourth-straight walk and second-straight bases-loaded walk, drawn by Marrero, cut the lead to 6-2. A fifth-straight walk and third-straight bases loaded walk, this time by Brannen, brought the score to 6-3. The final run of the inning was plated by Christian Koss on a sac fly to center field. Hickory led, 6-4.

The Crawdads got a run back in the eighth on an RBI groundout by Garcia.

The Drive pulled to within 7-5 Marrero began the inning with a walk. He advanced to second on a groundout to third. Two batters later, Cannon scorched a two-out RBI double to right-center.

For the sixth inning, Hickory scored a run, plating a run on a Strahm RBI single.

Game five against Hickory is scheduled for 7:05 pm Saturday night at Fluor Field. The Drive are slated to throw Chase Shugart while the Crawdads are set to throw Avery Weems.