Baseball Preview: Wiregrass Ranch Bulls vs. McKeel Academy Wildcats
Wiregrass Ranch is on a six-game streak of home wins, while McKeel Academy is on a three-game streak of away wins: one of those streaks is about to end. The Wiregrass Ranch Bulls will take on the McKeel Academy Wildcats at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday. The pair have allowed few runs on average, (Wiregrass Ranch: 3.1, McKeel Academy: 2) so any runs scored will be well earned.
Last Tuesday, Wiregrass Ranch needed a bit of extra time to put away River Ridge. They narrowly escaped with a victory as the team sidled past the Royal Knights 4-2.
Wiregrass Ranch got a great performance from Logan Voelz as he struck out ten batters over 5.2 innings while giving up just two earned runs off three hits. Voelz has been consistent recently: he hasn't pitched less than five innings in five consecutive pitching appearances.
On the hitting side, Sean Ballmann was excellent, going 1-for-4 with a home run. Gavin Binder was another key contributor, going 2-for-4 with two doubles.
Meanwhile, McKeel Academy beat Discovery 6-3 on Tuesday.
The team relied heavily on Wyatt Thomas, who scored two runs and stole a base while going 3-for-4. The team also got some help courtesy of Brock Spurgeon, who scored a run and stole a base while going 1-for-2.
Wiregrass Ranch's win bumped their record up to 12-3. As for McKeel Academy, they have been performing incredibly well recently as they've won 14 of their last 15 contests, which provided a nice bump to their 18-2 record this season.
The batters for both teams will have to hit smart on Thursday as both have some strikeout artists on the roster. Wiregrass Ranch has been retiring batters left and right this season, having averaged 8.1 strikeouts per game. However, it's not like McKeel Academy struggles in that department as they've been averaging 6.8. Considering how easily both teams rack up Ks, the hitters on both teams better bring their A-game into this one.
Wiregrass Ranch might still be hurting after the 9-2 loss they got from McKeel Academy when the teams last played back in March. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of McKeel Academy's Caleb Clanton, who tossed five innings while giving up just one earned run off five hits. Now that Wiregrass Ranch knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
