The Hickory Crawdads spotted the Aberdeen IronBirds the first run of the contest, but a pair of five run innings for Hickory allowed the Crawdads to run away with a 15-2 win Wednesday on the road.

Aberdeen struck first in the bottom of the third inning. In the top of the fourth, Hickory rebounded when Cody Freeman singled to drive in Tucker Mitchell to tie the score at one. The IronBirds retook the lead in the home half of the fourth inning.

From then on, it was all Crawdads. With one out and the bases loaded, Abimelec Ortiz hit a sac fly and later, Cody Freeman cleared the bases with a grand slam as Hickory led 6-2.

In the seventh inning, Freeman doubled to score Mitchell again. Yosy Galan then drove Freeman home with a single to left field.

Hickory tacked on five more runs in the eighth inning. Daniel Mateo ground out but drove in Griffin Cheney. A wild pitch then allowed Cooper Johnson to score from third. Wyatt Langord hit a triple scoring Cameron Cauley. Finally, Ortiz hit his 18th home run of the season to right center field, pushing the Crawdads lead to 13-2.

Hickory added two more in the ninth. Cheney singled to drive Galan home and Cameron Cauley hit a sacrifice fly that scored Cheney.

Every Crawdad batter scored at least one run with Mitchell crossing home on three occasions. With his grand slam, Freeman ended up with six RBI. Emiliano Teodo picked up the win on the mound with five innings pitched, allowing three hits, two runs and striking out six. Larson Kindreich, Jackson Leath, Ricky DeVito, and Gavin Collyer all pitched an inning in relief for Hickory, allowing only three hits and walking none collectively.