Swanson and Pena Silence Crawdads in 6-1 Win

ASHEVILLE- The Asheville Tourists rode their pitching duo of Nic Swanson and Alain Pena to a 6-1 victory over the Hickory Crawdads Thursday night. Swanson dealt five innings and Pena followed with four scoreless frames. The two right-handers held Hickory to a total of one run and four hits.

The Crawdads did score the game’s first run. It came in the top of the fourth when Hickory stole home on a pickoff throw to first base. Those two baserunners were the only two to reach against Swanson. Asheville countered with a run in the bottom of the fourth when Oliver Carrillo singled; went to second on a wild pitch; took third on a groundout; then scored on a throwing error.

The score remained 1-1 until the bottom of the sixth. The Tourists had two runners aboard with two outs. Garret Guillemette, one day removed from a four-hit game, blasted a three-run Homer to left-centerfield and put the home team on top 4-1.

Fernando Caldera and Kenni Gomez each added RBI hits in the bottom of the seventh and the two insurance runs were more than enough for Pena to hold the lead. Gomez finished with a game-high three hits and Carrillo added two hits to the offensive attack.

The Tourists will look to make it two wins in a row with Game Four of the six-game series set for Friday night at 6:35pm ET.