Hickory Crawdads 7 Savannah Sand Gnats 1

The Savannah Sand Gnats and the Hickory Crawdads played the first game of a four game series Thursday evening at Grayson Stadium in front of 2,678 fans. Hickory collected 13 hits, three were for triples, to beat the Gnats 7-1

Starting pitcher for Hickory, Jared Eickhoff, (W,(2-1) pitched 5 innings, allowed 1 run on 2 hits, walked 3 and struck out 2. Reliever Santo Perez,  (S-1) pitched 4 shut out innings and  did not allow a hit.

Hickory scored in the first inning when Hanser Alberto tripled and scored on a throwing error by the second baseman. In the 3rd inning, Chris Grayson hit a triple and scored on a sacrifice fly. The Crawdads scored 2 runs in the 4th, 1 run in the 5th, and their final 2 runs in the 6th inning.

Savannah scored their lone run in the 4th inning when Brian Harrison singled and reached second on a balk. He later scored on a groundout.

Starting Savannah pitcher Alexander Panteliodis (L, 2-1) pitched 4 innings, allowed 4 runs on 4 hits, struck out 3 and walked 2. Tyson Seng pitched 2 innings, allowed 3 runs on 6 hits, walked 1 and struck out 1 batter. Carlos Vazquez pitched 2 shutout innings, allowed 1 hit, walked 2 and struck out 2. Pitching the 9th inning, Jared West, gave up 2 hits.

Game 2 of the 4 game series will be played, Friday at 7:00pm at Grayson Stadium.