Hillcats fall to Charleston Riverdogs
The Lynchburg Hillcats dream season came to an end Tuesday, Sept. 21 with a 6-2 loss to the Charleston RiverDogs in the decisive second game of the Carolina League Championship Series.
Down 1-0 in the series with their backs against the wall, the Hillcats turned to Trenton Denholm on the hill against the RiverDogs starter JJ Goss. Both pitchers silenced the bats in the first three innings, giving up no runs. Denholm gave up the only baserunner on a Bobby Seymour double in the second inning.
The RiverDogs finally cracked the scoreboard in the fourth inning as shortstop Carson Williams crushed a solo home run to deep center field for a 1-0 Charleston lead. After allowing another double to Seymour, Denholm settled back in by retiring the next five Charleston batters to keep the score 1-0.
Strong pitching had been a theme for the Hillcats this postseason. The pitching staff gave up only four earned runs in the division series to the Fredericksburg Nationals.
“Our pitching carried us here,” manager Omir Santos said. “The pitching was outstanding.”
However, Denholm could not hold Charleston off for much longer. The RiverDogs blew the game open in the sixth inning with four straight hits to start the frame, scoring two runs. This forced Omir Santos to make a call to the bullpen, bringing in Zach Pettway.
The big blow came with two outs. Brock Jones slammed a home run over the right field wall to push the Charleston lead out to 5-0.
With Goss allowing no Hillcats’ hits through his first five innings of work, it seemed the Hillcats may go quietly on this night. However, there was no quit in the Hillcats’ dugout.
“We have a lot of guys that just don’t quit,” outfielder Jordan Brown said after the game. “We came this far, might as well finish.”
Brown led off the sixth inning with a solid single to center to break up the no-hitter, but the Hillcats could not bring him home. In the seventh, their bats started showing some life.
Isaiah Greene led off the inning with a home run off of the retired number plaques on top of the right-center field wall to make it a 5-1 ballgame. Later in the inning, Brown came up again and tripled in Richard Paz to bring the Hillcats a bit closer at 5-2. This forced RiverDogs manager Blake Butera to take Goss out for Antonio Jimenez.
The RiverDogs scored an insurance run in the top of the eighth to make it 6-2. Behind a raucous crowd, the Hillcats looked to make a huge push to get back into the game.
“(The crowd has) been great the last few playoff games,” Brown said. “It may not look like a lot of people, but it definitely feels like there is a lot more.”
With the home crowd behind them, the Hillcats loaded the bases with two outs for Will Bartlett to come up. Bartlett then hit a weak ground ball to Williams at shortstop to end the frame.
The Hillcats went down in order in the ninth, and the RiverDogs celebrated the Carolina League Championship on the field. Despite the disappointing loss, the Hillcats still had good things to say about how the season turned out.
“We overcame a lot of adversity,” Brown said.
The Hillcats finished the regular season with a 63-68 record. They narrowly missed out on their first Carolina League Championship since they shared the title in 2017.
Lipowski is a sports reporter for the Liberty Champion