Nick Noonan and Oliver Odle were left off the South Atlantic League All-Star roster when the Southern Division met the Northern Division in Greensboro, N.C. on Tuesday.

So the two Augusta GreenJackets had to save their All-Star performances until the second half of the season began Thursday night when the GreenJackets picked up a 5-2 win over the Asheville Tourists.

Odle went 7w innings to pick up his fifth win of the year and Noonan extended his season-high hitting streak to 14 games in front of the largest crowd of the season since opening weekend at Lake Olmstead Stadium. The announced crowd of 4,852 fans saw Odle strike out 10 batters and Noonan give the home team an early lead with an RBI double on his first at-bat of the game.

"I think he's one of the better players in this league and one of the best prospects," GreenJackets manager Andy Skeels said of Noonan. "I think he's so steady that he maybe flew under the radar of some managers in the league."

Noonan also scored a run in the first inning when he came in on a sacrifice fly out off the bat of Thomas Neal for an early 2-0 lead. Neal's one-out drive deep to left-center field nearly cleared the wall for a two-run homer but was caught at the warning track.

Asheville rallied to tie the game in the fourth inning on a two-run homer from left fielder Kevin Clark.

The GreenJackets responded with three runs in the seventh thanks to a double from Angel Villalona, an RBI single from Jackson Williams and a sacrifice fly from Charlie Culberson.

The win signalled a better start for the GreenJackets in the second half of the season than the opener in April. They lost their first three games to start the year, and a five-game losing streak near the end of April put them as far back as sixth place in the SAL Southern Division standings.

Asheville benefitted from the GreenJackets early problems and clinched the first-half title in the final week.

"That was definitely motivation," Noonan said. "We talked about how we started off slow in the first half, and it came back to bite us. We didn't want that to happen again."

Odle, who has won three of his past five starts, got control of his fastball early and added a slider to help tie his career high in strikeouts.

NOTES: Augusta sent Daniel Runzler and Orlando Yntema to Salem-Kizer and picked up David Mixon and Paul Lussier from extended spring training.