Lynchburg Hillcats make it three in a row over Pelicans

The Lynchburg Hillcats picked up their third straight win over the Myrtle Beach Pelicans with an 8-2 finish Wednesday night at City Stadium.  Navery Moore gave up two runs in seven innings to get his fourth-straight win. Robby Hefflinger hit his third home run in two games to propel the offense.

The Hillcats (28-22) offense came alive early with a three-run first.  Matt Lipka led off the inning with a double then got to third on a sacrifice bunt from Ross Heffley.  The Pelicans (29-22) brought the infield in and David Rohm was able to chop one up the middle for an RBI-single.  Hefflinger was up next and slugged a homer over the left-centerfield wall to make it 3-0.

Navery Moore matched his season high with a seven-inning effort to get his fourth-straight victory.  He allowed two runs on three hits with three walks and five strikeouts.  The two runs came in the fifth on a two-run home run by Preston Beck.

Lynchburg got three unearned runs in the seventh to get some insurance.  Emerson Landoni reached on an error to begin the inning and Luis De La Cruz singled.  Matt Weaver laid down a sacrifice bunt then Lipka hit a sharp ground ball single that was kept in the infield but allowed Landoni to score and Lipka to get to second with an infield double. Heffley hit a sacrifice fly and Lipka scored later in the inning on a wild pitch to cap the inning.

Jerad Eickhoff (4-3) took the loss for Myrtle Beach, throwing seven innings and giving up six runs, three earned, on eight hits and a walk while striking out three.

The Hillcats added two more runs in the eighth on a two-run double by Will Skinner.  John Cornely pitched two perfect innings in relief to end it.

The Hillcats have won the four-game series and have a chance to sweep the Pelicans in tomorrow’s series finale. First pitch is set for 6:05pm with gates opening at 5pm for “Salute to Scrubs Night” presented by MedExpress.  Fans dressed in scrubs will get half-off general admission tickets.  The daily specials feature $2 drinks presented by Yuengling, Miller Lite and 93.7 KHF.

The Hillcats send Jarett Miller (3-3, 3.91) to the mound against the Pelicans’ Alec Asher (4-2, 3.02) in the finale.  If you can’t make it to the ballpark, join Erik Wilson and Jake Levy for all the play-by-play action starting with the Hillcats On-Deck Show, powered by Honda/Suzuki of Lynchburg, going live at 5:40pm on 97.9 FM The Planet andlynchburg-hillcats.com.