Wilmington stifles Lynchburg, prevents Hillcats sweep

Nick Basto hit a three-run homer with one out in the fourth inning, and Winston-Salem stifled the Hillcats offense to salvage the series finale, 4-1, at BB&T Ballpark Thursday night. Lynchburg dropped a road contest for the first time this year and fell to 16-5 overall.

Lynchburg notched the first run of the game in the second inning. The first three batters all reached in the frame. However,Daniel Salters was thrown out at home trying to score on a Claudio Bautista double. One batter later, Ivan Castillo brought home Mark Mathias on a groundout to second base to give the Hillcats a 1-0 lead.

Lynchburg’s offense never did much outside of the second inning, logging only five hits in the game. Meanwhile, Winston-Salem jumped ahead in the fourth inning. Toby Thomas singled, and Gerson Montilla walked with one out in front of Nick Basto. Basto hit his second home run of the series, a three-run bomb that pushed the Dash ahead, 3-1.

Winston-Salem scored the final run of the night one frame later when Louie Lechich drew a leadoff walk and came home on a two-out double by Thomas.

Justus Sheffield (2-1, 3.33) surrendered all four runs on five hits, striking out four and walking three over six innings. Spencer Adams (3-0, 3.46) also went six innings but limited Lynchburg to one run on four hits. The Dash are now 4-1 in games thatAdams starts, accounting for half of their wins on the season. Jacob Morris went two scoreless innings to earn a hold, andEuclides Leyer worked a perfect ninth to pick up his first save of the season.

Daniel Salters singled in the second inning to extend his hitting streak to nine games…He is batting a team-best .432 so far this year…Bobby Bradley recorded another double in the first…He finished the series 7-for-13 with three doubles, two home runs, five RBIs and six runs scored.

Lynchburg has not lost back-to-back games yet this season, and the Hillcats will try to continue that trend by bouncing back at the Carolina Mudcats Friday night at 7 p.m. Mitch Brown (1-1, 5.40) will start for Lynchburg after tying a career-high nine strikeouts in his last outing. Fans can listen to the game on 93.3 FM and 1320 AM as well as www.lynchburg-hillcats.com, beginning with the Hillcats On-Deck Show at 6:45 p.m.