MYRTLE BEACH -- The Down East Wood Ducks (12-28 second half, 47-63 overall) used big swings to take a lead that lasted nearly wire-to-wire in an 8-3 victory over the Myrtle Beach Pelicans (16-23, 50-59) on Wednesday night. The win snapped a six-game losing streak and an eight-game skid against the Pelicans.

Andretty Cordero and Ricky Valencia started the party with back-to-back home runs in the second inning. It marked the fourth instance of a pair of Woodies hitting homers back-to-back this season.

Walker Weickel’s strong start never allowed the Pelicans to tie the game as he worked into the sixth inning for his second win of the season. Of the 11 in-play outs Weickel recorded, nine were groundouts in his first win against the Cubs organization in his minor league career.

The closest the Pelicans got to tying the game was in the fifth when Myrtle Beach scored a pair of runs but Weickel left the tying and go-ahead runs on-base on a Jhonny Pereda ground-out.

The Wood Ducks responded with a three-run sixth using extra-base hits. The inning began with back-to-back triples from LeDarious Clark and Anderson Tejeda to push the lead to 4-2. Josh Altmann followed with an RBI double and Cordero added an RBI single the other way. The DEWDs led 6-2 and took control of the game.

The Pelicans scratched home a run in the bottom of the frame and loaded the bases against Royce Bolinger. He escaped by inducing a 1-2-3 double play and firing a strikeout to end the threat and kept the Wood Ducks in front.

Clark added a sacrifice fly in the seventh and Chuck Leblanc lined an RBI double in the eighth to  push the lead to 8-3.

Bolinger exited after one inning and Locke St. John dominated for three innings to close out the contest, matching a season-high. The southpaw struck out three and only allowed one hit to earn his third save of the season.

The Wood Ducks have a chance to claim their first series win in over a month in Thursday’s finale in Myrtle Beach. Right-hander Emerson Martinez (4-10, 4.08) will take on righty Erick Leal (1-1, 0.61) at 7:05 p.m. to close the brief three-game road trip.