Crawdads Blast Off Against Tourists, Win 6-1

Hickory, NC- The Crawdads offense powered the team to a 6-1 victory over the Asheville Tourists on Sunday night in front of a sold out crowd of 5,576. The ‘Dads took the series 4 games to 2.

The Crawdads wasted no time getting things going. Kellen Strahm led off the bottom of the first with a homerun. Blaine Crim collected a single to extend his hitting streak to seven games and got on base for Miguel Aparicio. Aparicio drove his 5th homerun of the year to give the ‘Dads a 3-0 lead.

The offense sparked again in the fourth inning to make the score 5-0. Trey Hair was hit by a pitch and Aparicio brought him around to score with a triple to right. Pedro Gonzalez hit sacrifice fly to left that allowed Aparicio to tag up and score.

Crawdads lefty Grant Wolfram was stellar on the mound, twirling six shutout innings. He threw 86 pitches, striking out 9, walking 2 and allowing just 1 hit.

In the bottom of the sixth, the ‘Dads got another run across to pull ahead by six runs. Crim doubled to right. Gonzalez hit a grounder to short but a throwing error let Crim come in to score.

Asheville managed to get a run across in the seventh off reliever Grant Anderson. They still trailed the ‘Dads 6-1.

Jean Casanova took over in the ninth inning to lock down the game for the Crawdads.

The Crawdads will hit the road for a week in Winston-Salem. They will return on Tuesday, July 13th to start a six-game homestand against the Aberdeen IronBirds.