Fayetteville, NC - The Fayetteville Woodpeckers played their first playoff game in nearly seven years on Tuesday night at Segra Stadium, hosting the Fredericksburg Nationals in game one of the Carolina League North Division Championship Series. The Woodpeckers erased at 2-0 deficit and snatched a 4-2 victory that was anchored by a dominant bullpen effort.
Juan Fraide got the ball for game one and worked around a pair of singles in the first inning. The top-30 prospect surrendered a pair of runs in the second on an RBI infield single and a RBI double from Jordan Williams to make it 2-0 after two innings.
Fayetteville grabbed its first run tally in the bottom of the third on a stretch of three straight two-out singles. Rashawn Galloway extended the inning against Noah Millikan with a two-out single, Owen Nowak connected for a hit, then Kam Durnin drove home Galloway with a liner to left field to cut the game to 2-1.
Fraide worked through four innings and handed the ball to Jank Pichardo for the fifth. Pichardo worked around a single in a scoreless inning, then Charlie Weber (W, 1-0) took over in the sixth inning.
Weber was nearly untouchable over two perfect innings, striking out five of the sixth batters he faced to hold the deficit at 2-1 going into the bottom of the seventh.
Ben Tryon led off the home seventh with a walk and advanced to second base on a single from Arturo Flores. Galloway delivered the go-ahead swing with one out in the inning, lining a pitch from Tony Neubeck (L, 0-1) into right field. Tryon scored on the hit and the ball rolled through right fielder Gavin Fien, allowing Flores to score all the way from first base for the 3-2 advantage.
Kevin Alvarez led off the eighth inning with a single and scored an insurance run on a Brandon Piasecki sacrifice-fly into right field that made it 4-2.
Brandon Cassedy (SV, 1) continued the stretch of shutdown relief pitching in the top of the eighth inning. The undrafted free agent out of George Mason retired six straight hitters to close down the game and struck out Avery Ortiz for the final out of the ninth. All together, Pichardo, Weber and Cassedy combined to retire the final 13 FredNats hitters of the game.
The best-of-three series heads to Fredericksburg on Thursday night with first pitch scheduled for 6:35 PM. Fayetteville is projected to start RHP Jagger Beck opposite RHP Landon Harmon for Fredericksburg.
Full Box Score: https://www.milb.com/gameday/850951/final/wrap