Hickory rallied past Lakewood 2-1 on Saturday night. ---
Hickory rallied past Lakewood 2-1 on Saturday night.
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HICKORY, NC - Tyreque Reed's RBI double in the bottom of the eighth inning broke a 1-1 tie and gave Hickory a 2-1 win over the BlueClaws on Saturday night at LP Frans Stadium.
The teams have now split the first two games of their four-game series and Hickory (30-19/60-57) pulls to within 2.5 games of the first place BlueClaws (32-16/73-44). The teams have two more games in this series and four more in Hickory beginning August 23rd among 21 games left in the season.
Reed's double came off Luis Carrasco in the eighth and drove in Yonny Hernandez, who led off the inning with a walk. The Crawdads tied the game in the seventh on a two-out RBI single from Justin Jacobs, also off Carrasco, who fell to 4-1 on the year.
Jean Casanova (4-2) threw two scoreless innings to earn the win while Demarcus Evans struck out all three he faced in the ninth to earn his seventh save.
The BlueClaws opened the scoring in the fifth inning when Colby Fitch came home on a groundout by Gregori Rivero. Fitch led off the inning with a single, advanced to second on a wild pitch, to third on a groundout by Madison Stokes, and scored on Rivero's groundout to put Lakewood up 1-0.
Lakewood starter Andrew Brown, who walked a season high four hitters, battled through six scoreless innings. The right-hander induced two double-play groundballs and lowered his ERA to 1.80 over 11 appearances with Lakewood.
Hickory starter Hans Crouse, making his South Atlantic League debut, gave up one run over six innings on just three hits and did not factor in the decision.
The teams continue their series on Sunday at 5:05 pm. RHP Julian Garcia (5-2) starts for the BlueClaws opposite RHP Noah Bremer (5-4).
- BlueClaws -
