The Hill City Howlers completed a much-needed three-game sweep of the Fredericksburg Nationals with a 10-7 triumph Sunday.
Hill City (8-16) earned its first series win since beating Delmarva four games to two in the first week of May.
The Howlers got the job done with timely scoring, including a five-run third inning and four runs in the last three frames of the game, including three late-game home runs.
Starting pitcher Erigaldi Perez turned in his best performance of the season, earning his first win with Hill City in a five-inning, seven-strikeout afternoon. He only allowed five Nationals (11-13) to reach base in the outing as well.
At the plate, Luis De La Cruz pushed Hill City forward with three of the team’s six RBIs, including a solo homer, RBI single and RBI walk. The long ball was De La Cruz’s second of the three-game set.
The Luis De La Cruz RBI single got the scoring started in this one, giving Hill City a 1-0 lead in the first frame.
Fredericksburg quickly countered in the bottom of the inning, scoring a pair on Juan Cruz’s ninth homer of the year. Those two runs would be the only ones Howlers starter Erigaldi Perez would let up in the game.
Then came the third inning, in which Hill City scored five runs on one hit, a Dauri Fernandez single. The Howlers took advantage of plenty of miscues and scored runs on two balks, two errors and a walk in the inning. The frenzied frame put the Howlers up 6-2.
Things settled down for a while before the Nationals got back on the board with a Luke Dickerson solo shot in the sixth, his 12th home run of the season.
The Howlers would match the tally in the seventh on a Luis De La Cruz blast to re-take a four-run advantage.
After scoring one more run in the top of the eighth, it would get scary for Hill City after a four-run Fredericksburg bottom frame.
Three doubles and a home run later, the score was 8-7 and the Howlers were hanging on by a thread after the FredNats’ power surge.
Hill City responded with its own power surge, with Jose Pirela and Yeiferth Castillo going back to back for their ninth and fourth homers of the season.
Righty Javi Torres would seal the deal in the bottom of the ninth to secure the Howlers sweep.
Hill City returns to action Tuesday at 6:30 for its series opener versus Delmarva. Join Jason Prill and Connor Schuh then for coverage of the game on the Hill City Howlers Radio Network, Bally Live, or MLB.tv.