The Charleston RiverDogs return home for Game 2 of the Carolina League Southern Division Championship Series at 7:05 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 10, at Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park, needing one more win over the Hickory Crawdads to punch a ticket to the league championship round.
Charleston seized the series lead 1-0 with a 9-8 win in 10 innings Tuesday night at L.P. Frans Stadium. Outfielder Slater de Brun went 4-for-5 with three runs batted in and lined the go-ahead single in the top of the tenth to bring home automatic runner Angel Mateo. Infielder Taitn Gray followed with a sacrifice fly to plate Deward Tovar and extend the lead to two.
Charleston piled up 16 hits in the opener, the club’s second-highest single-postseason-game total over the past 21 years and the fourth time in that span the RiverDogs have plated nine or more runs in a playoff game. First baseman Tom Poole added a multi-hit night that included a solo home run in the ninth inning that briefly tied the game, and Dean Moss delivered a go-ahead single in the seventh. On the mound, starter Luke Jackson opened with two scoreless frames and three strikeouts, reliever Yereny Teus fired 1 2/3 hitless innings with four strikeouts, and Efrailin Ramos struck out Hickory catcher Josh Springer to end the game.
Hickory came into the series having closed the regular season on a 15-game winning streak and now faces elimination on the road. The two clubs met 12 times in the regular season, with the Crawdads winning seven of those meetings, but the postseason opener was their first meeting since June. Charleston’s roster carries seven Tampa Bay Rays Top 30 prospects, including Grady Emerson at No. 10 on the MLB Top 100 and Cooper Flemming at No. 83.
Wednesday was a scheduled travel day. A Charleston win Thursday would send the RiverDogs to the Carolina League Championship Round for the first time since 2023, when the club last advanced to the title series.
