Asheville steals game one in Kannapolis

Despite overcoming a five-run deficit through three innings, the Kannapolis Intimidators 13 hits and nine runs were not good enough to win Monday night, as the Asheville Tourists scored two in the eighth and then scored three in the 11^th inning to win 11-9.
The Asheville put up a quick four-spot in the first inning against Kannapolis' right-handed pitcher Jhoan Quijada, as the first four batters of the game all reached and scored for the Tourists, giving them an early four-run advantage.
In the bottom of the first, Tyler Frost stayed hot by cranking his 19^th double of the season off the right field wall, but, Will Gaddis stranded Frost at third base with a strikeout and a pop out to end the Intimidators early threat.
In the third, Casey Golden connected on his 32^nd homer of the season to left field, increasing the lead to five, 5-0.
Down by a good margin, the Intimidators started to scratch away at the Asheville lead in the fourth, as Tate Blackman used a one-out single to get things going for the I's. Next up, Michael Hickman smacked a double into the right-center gap, scoring Blackman for Kannapolis' first run. One batter later and on the first pitch, Carlos Perez hammered a double into left-center, switching places with Hickman to cut the lead to three, 5-2. After a groundout off the bat of Ian Dawkins, Ramon Beltre connected on a blooper into the outfield to score Perez for Kannapolis' third run, bringing them within two runs.
After a clean inning for Quijada in the top of the fifth, the Intimidators got busy with their bats in the bottom-half of the inning, as Craig Dedelow drew a four-pitch walk with one out. With one out, Blackman smashed a Gaddis pitch deep over the center field wall for his 15^th homer of the season, tying the game, 5-5, on the two-run shot. Two batters later, Carlos Perez did his best impersonation of Blackman, cranking his second homer of the season on a line over the left field wall, giving the I's a 6-5 lead.
With three straight innings of clean ball for both sides, the Tourists scored two runs in the eighth inning on a triple from Todd Czinege and a sacrifice fly from Jeff Moberg to help the Tourists regain the lead, 7-6.
Down to their last two outs, Hickman hit his second double of the ball game, followed by a Perez frozen rope single up the middle to score Hickman to tie the game, 7-7.
In extras, the Intimidators answered the Tourists' run in the tenth with one of their own, but the three runs scored in the top of the 11^th inning by Asheville proved to be too much for the Intimidators to come back from.
Kannapolis will look to get back to their winning ways with LHP Drew Harrington getting the ball with first pitch set for 7:05 p.m. at Intimidators Stadium supported by Atrium Health