By Noah Adcock-Howeth, Augusta GreenJackets
CHARLESTON, S.C. – In the final game away from home in 2025, the GreenJackets scored 12 runs in the final three innings, including eight in the seventh, to steal a shocking 12-7 victory from the RiverDogs Sunday night.
Despite the lofty final score, the first half of the game was an old-fashioned pitchers’ duel, as Jacob Shafer and Ryan Andrade dueled back and forth through four scoreless innings. Andrade put the Jackets down in order in the fifth, and Charleston finally broke through in the bottom half. Narciso Polanco worked a one-out walk, and Nathan Flewelling rocked a changeup off the scoreboard for a two-run home run.
Andrade clamped Augusta to another zero, finishing his final home start with six one-run innings and no runs despite four walks. Augusta turned to Carter Lovasz in the bottom half, and Charleston teed off on the reliever in an attempt to pull away. Ricardo Gonzalez ripped a one-out double, and took third on a bloop single from Derek Datil. Jose Monzon continued to torch the Jackets with a two-run single to double the lead, and a double from Polanco scored Monzon for a 5-0 advantage.
The Jackets finally got their chance in the seventh, as reliever Dylan Lesko was wild from the start. Four straight men reached against Lesko, on three walks and a fielder’s choice. With the bases loaded and one out, Lesko grooved a fastball to John Gil, who cracked a two-run double to get Augusta on the board.
Lesko was quickly replaced with the reliable Kaleb Corbett, and Augusta attacked him immediately. Five straight batters knocked RBI hits against Corbett before his first out, snatching the lead from the Dogs. Tate Southisene, Owen Carey, and Dixon Williams each hit RBI singles, before Juan Mateo added a double to score one more. Joe Olsavsky, who had led off the inning, poked a two-run single, and Augusta had its biggest inning of the year with 12 batters and eight runs.
Lovasz was lifted after walking the leadoff batter in the bottom of the seventh, and it was Kade Woods who was tasked with holding the lead. Woods worked around a walk of his own for a zero, using a line drive double play to strand a man at third. The Jackets scored twice more in the 8th, using a wild pitch from Mason Auer and another RBI hit from Mateo to go up 10-5.
Charleston cobbled together their best come back bid in the 8th, getting the two runs from the top half of the inning back in the bottom. Derek Datil knocked a leadoff single, and scored on an RBI triple from the red-hot Polanco. Polanco would trot home on an RBI groundout, but that would be the final gasp for the Dogs.
The Jackets put two more on the board in the ninth courtesy of a two-run double for Carey, and Woods threw up a zero in the ninth for his second pro save. The three innings worked by Woods was the longest outing for him since high school, more than anything in college or with Augusta.
There is no time to rest and recover for the GreenJackets, as the team plays their lone Monday game of the year on Labor Day at home. The Kannapolis Cannon Ballers come to SRP Park for the first and only time this year, looking for revenge in the season’s final week after being swept by the Jackets in early August. First pitch will be at 6:05 p.m., with Rayven Antonio on the mound for what will likely be his last outing of 2025.
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