Ovalles’ Three-Hits, Pitching Staff 12K’s Lead BG to 8-4 Win

Hickory, North Carolina – The Bowling Green Hot Rods (5-1) pitching staff racked up 12 strikeouts and Alexander Ovalles added three hits in an 8-4 win over the Hickory Crawdads (3-3) on Thursday night. The Hot Rods and Crawdads will play the fourth game of the series on Friday night with a 6:00 PM CT first pitch at L.P. Frans Stadium in Hickory, North Carolina.

Hickory jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first but the Hot Rods overtook the Crawdads in the third against Hickory starter Nick Krauth. Ovalles, Nate Soria, and Abiezel Ramirez led off the inning with three consecutive singles. Ovalles and Soria scored when Tanner Murray doubled to left to tie the game, 2-2. Beau Brundage singled to shallow left, plating Ramierz and Murray to take a 4-2 lead.

The Crawdads plated one on an error in the bottom of the third to come within a run, but the floodgates opened for the Hot Rods offense in the eighth. Heriberto Hernandez led off with a walk and went to second when Ronny Simon did the same with one out. Both moved up on a double steal before Hernandez scored on a wild pitch and Ovalles tripled to deep center field to score Simon and give BG a 6-3 advantage. Soria hit a sacrifice fly to center to plate Ovalles and Ramirez homered to deep right-center to extend the Hot Rods edge to 8-3.

Hickory got a homer from Jake Guenther to lead off the ninth, but the Hot Rods closed out their fifth win of the season with an 8-4 victory.

Zack Trageton allowed three runs, two earned, over 3.0 innings in his second start of the season with five walks and a strikeout. Audry Lugo (1-0) threw 3.0 shutout innings out of the bullpen, holding the Crawdads to one hit with five strikeouts and a hit batsman in a win. Cameron Leonard tossed the final 3.0 innings allowing one run on four hits with six strikeouts.