Baseball Game Preview: Lakewood Rangers vs. Walsh Jesuit Warriors

The Lakewood Rangers will face off against the Walsh Jesuit Warriors at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday. The two teams each escaped (but just barely!) with wins against their previous opponents.

Lakewood is on a roll after a high-stakes playoff matchup on Wednesday. They skirted past Hoover 3-1. Winning may never get old, but the Rangers sure are getting used to it with their sixth in a row.

Meanwhile, it was close, but on Wednesday Walsh Jesuit sidestepped Stow-Munroe Falls for a 2-1 win. The victory continues a trend for the Warriors in their matchups with the Bulldogs: they've now won three in a row.

Walsh Jesuit got a great performance from Shawn Sullivan as he tossed five innings while giving up just one earned run off two hits. Sullivan has been nothing but reliable on the mound: he hasn't tossed less than five strikeouts any time he's pitched this season.

At the plate, Andrew Holcomb was excellent, going 1-for-3 with one home run. That home run marked the first that he has launched this season. The team also got some help courtesy of Matthew Mansbery, who went 2-for-3 with one run and one double.

Lakewood pushed their record up to 21-5 with the win, which was their seventh straight on the road. The road victories came thanks in part to their pitching effort, having only surrendered 1.4 runs on average over those games. As for Walsh Jesuit, their win bumped their record up to 16-7-1.