Wood Ducks Lose Hit Parade to Mudcats

Zebulon, N.C. – After a tightly played game through the first four innings, the Down East Wood Ducks fell to the Carolina Mudcats, 9-3 Sunday afternoon. The Woodies trailed by one after the top of the fifth, but the pitching staff allowed eight runs in the final four innings.

Carolina (44-28) opened the scoring in the bottom of the first, with a run against Down East starter Teodoro Ortega.

Down East (39-33) responded with a run in the top of the second. *Cristian Inoa *continued to show his power as he led off with a solo home run (6) to tie the game at one.

The Wood Ducks took their first lead of the day in the top of the fourth. Thomas Saggese *led off with a double and advanced to third on a ground out by *Alejandro Osuna. Making his Down East debut, Konner Piotto singled to drive in Saggese and the Woodies took the 2-1 lead.

In the bottom of the fifth, the Mudcats plated three runs re-gain the lead, 4-2.

Down East cut in to the deficit, with a run in the top of the sixth. With two outs, *Jayce Easley *doubled and scored on a base hit from *Luisangel Acuña *to make the score 4-3.

Carolina took a commanding lead late in the game as they drove in three runs in the bottom of the sixth and added two more in the bottom of the eighth to take a 9-3 lead.

The Wood Ducks managed to put one more run on the board in the top of the ninth but that is where their rally ended. Inoa led off with a single and stole second with one out. Saggese then reached on a fielding error by Felix Valerio and Inoa scored to cut the lead down to 9-4.

Ortega took the no-decision, pitching two innings while allowing one run on two hits with two strikeouts. Destin Dotson pitched 1 2/3 scoreless innings with two walks and four strikeouts. Eris Filpo (L, 1-2) took the loss, pitching 1 1/3 innings while allowing three runs on four hits with one strikeout. Connor Sechler contributed one inning but allowed three runs on four hits with one strikeout. Spencer Mraz pitched one scoreless inning with one walk. *Jesus Linarez *allowed two runs on three hits with one walk and one strikeout in one inning of work.

With an off day tomorrow, the Wood Ducks return home to Historic Grainger Stadium for a six-game series with the Fayetteville Woodpeckers. The starters for that series have not yet been announced.

Fans can purchase tickets on woodducksbaseball.com, by calling the Wood Ducks Team Offices at (252) 686-5164 or in the Wood Ducks Team Offices located at Grainger Stadium (Mon-Fri – 9am - 4pm). Make sure to follow your Down East Wood Ducks on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook so you don’t miss anything!