The Crawdads left’em full in the ninth inning on Sunday night and Lexington (Ky.) walked away with an 8-7 victory to close a South Atlantic League series at L.P. Frans Stadium.
Hickory erased a five-run deficit and was within a run in its final at-bat after Jake Skole walked with the bases loaded, but Legends reliever Jorge De Leon then finished off the Crawdads (51-35, 1-7) for his 11th save.
De Leon, the fourth Lexington pitcher used, got Alejandro Selen and Kellin Deglan of swinging strikeouts to earn David Martinez, who threw two scoreless innings, a victory.
Colby Killian (6-3), the fourth pitcher used by Hickory, took the loss after giving up two runs in one inning.
Lexington (40-48, 6-12) scored twice in the ninth inning to extend its lead to 8-6, once on an RBI double by Ben Heath and again on a single by Tyler Burnett.
Burnett had two hits and Jay Austin had two hits and drove in three runs to lead Lexington.
Andrew Clark led the Crawdads with three hits, while Teodoro Martinez, Skole and Tomas Tellis each had two hits. Martinez and Selen hit solo home runs and Skole had a two-run shot in the third inning.
The Legends were up 5-0 through 3 ½ innings after they scored twice in the first with two outs – on singles by Delino DeShields and Austin – and Austin had a two-run single in the fourth.
Clark singled and Skole hit a home run, then Selen homered for Hickory in the bottom of the fourth to make it 5-3.
Skole got Hickory within 6-5 with a two-run single in the sixth inning and Martinez led off the seventh with a solo home run for a 6-all tie.
The Crawdads are idle Monday, then begin a seven-game road trip that begins Tuesday at West Virginia. After four games there, Hickory has three in Delmarva (Md.).
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