The Lynchburg Hillcats swept a doubleheader over the Carolina Mudcats Wednesday night at Five County Stadium with a 5-3 win in game one and a 5-4 comeback win in the backend. Kyle Kubitza hit a two-run homer in the seventh inning of game two for the win while Josh Elander had RBI hits in both games to extend his hitting streak to nine games. The win extends the Hillcats winning streak to a season-best eight games and lowers the magic number to eight for the Hillcats to secure a playoff spot.
The Hillcats (29-28, 65-61) batted around in the third inning of game one for the decisive four-run frame. David Rohm and Elmer Reyes each delivered RBI-doubles while Trent Moses and Cory Brownsten each had RBI-singles in the inning. Levi Hyams got the scoring started for Lynchburg with an RBI-double in the previous inning.
Joey Wendle drew first blood for Carolina (29-29, 51-77) with a two-run homer in the first off of Williams Perez. Perez settled in to string together three straight scoreless innings before the 35-minute rain delay.
Perez (6-1) came back out for the fifth inning and surrendered a run but got through it with the lead intact; he gave up three runs on six hits with a walk and six strikeouts. Shawn Morimando (8-12) failed to get through the third inning, giving up all five runs to take the loss. John Cornely allowed the tying run to reach base but pitched a scoreless seventh for his ninth save of the year.
Trailing by a run and down to their final out in game two, Daniel Castro eked out an infield single before Kubitza crushed a homer over the right field wall to flip the script and give the Hillcats the lead and eventual
The Mudcats used the long ball again in game two, taking Ryan Weber deep twice in the third inning to get the scoring started. Logan Vick hit his first home run as a Carolina Leaguer, a two-run shot, and Wendle hit his second homer of the day, a solo blast, to make it 3-0 after three innings.
Elander drove a sacrifice fly to center to score Kubitza to get a run back for the Hillcats in the top of the fourth but Erik Gonzalez tripled and scored on an Alex Lavisky single to answer in the bottom of the frame, it was 4-1 in favor of the Mudcats after four.
The Hillcats chipped away in the sixth with a pair of runs. Four straight hits led off the inning including RBI hits by Reyes and Elander to set the Hillcats up for their second final-inning comeback in as many days.
Robert Fish (2-2) got the win after delivering a perfect bottom of the sixth inning. Benny Suarez blew the save and took the loss. Chasen Shreve came on for a situational matchup and got the final out for his second save of the year.
The Hillcats and Mudcats return to regular nine-inning format Thursday night at Five County Stadium. First pitch is set for7:15pm with Ryan Hinson (3-2, 1.84) gets the start for Lynchburg against Joseph Colon (3-3, 3.31) for Carolina. Erik Wilson and Jake Levy have the radio call starting with the Hillcats On-Deck Show, powered by Honda/Suzuki of Lynchburg, at6:50pm on 97.9 FM The Planet and lynchburg-hillcats.com