Melendez's two homers power Rockers past Charleston 9-6

Ivan Melendez set the tone and then reset it when High Point needed breathing room, lifting the Rockers past Charleston 9-6 at Truist Point with a two-homer, four-RBI night that carried the opening game of their final first-half series. D.J. Burt matched the urgency with three hits and three runs scored, and Yuhi Sako steadied the middle innings with six frames of two-run ball as High Point improved to 27-34 in the first half.

The Rockers jumped in front immediately when Ryan McCarthy and Burt opened the first inning with back-to-back singles, then both came home on Melendez’s towering 425-foot three-run homer. Burt added another smart touch in the third, tagging from second on a fly ball and racing all the way home to make it 4-0.

Charleston answered in the fourth on Carlos De La Cruz’s single and Jhon Nuñez’s sacrifice fly, then cut deeper into the margin in the fifth on James Nelson’s RBI single. Melendez shut that door again in the sixth with his second homer of the night, a solo shot that pushed High Point back in front 5-2 and marked his second multi-home run game in a Rockers uniform.

The Rockers then delivered their biggest swing of the night in the seventh, when Aidan Brewer sparked a four-run rally in his first game back from the injured list. Burt and Alex Dickerson each drove in a run, and Nick Longhi added a two-run double to stretch the lead to 9-3. Charleston kept pushing in the ninth with three runs, but Ryan Chasse ended the rally by picking off Narciso Crook at first base.

High Point’s win came with the final days of the first half already closing in, as the Atlantic League’s first-half schedule ran to Thursday, July 2, 2026. Hagerstown and Southern Maryland had already clinched their division first-half championships that same day, leaving the Rockers playing for momentum and positioning rather than a playoff spot. Against a Charleston club that had beaten High Point 12-9 on June 9 after a five-run eighth inning, the Rockers leaned on the kind of complete night that has to travel into the second half: early power, sharp baserunning, timely hitting and just enough pitching to survive when the game tightened late.