Congratulations to the Lakewood BlueClaws! They shrugged off Friday night's tight loss and came back to shut out the Crawdads and win the South Atlantic League's northern division. They will face Greenville in the best-of-five championship round, which starts on Monday in Greenville.
Lakewood asserted itself immediately last night, taking a 3-0 lead in the 1st, which featured a two-run homer by catcher Sebastian Valle. They added one more in the 4th and another two in the 7th in the 6-0 shutout. Five errors did not help the Crawdads' cause.
Pitching, however, was the story of the series and BlueClaw starter Jonathan Pettibone, who had a no-hitter going into the 6th, was sterling. Pettibone went seven innings, struck out nine and walked one, and allowed no runs on just one hit. He also hit two batters. The Crawdads mustered just one other hit in the game.
