Baseball Game Preview: Farina South Central Cougars vs. Newton Eagles

The Farina South Central Cougars will challenge the Newton Eagles at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday.

Farina South Central will face Newton after dropping another heartbreaker against Salem on Wednesday, which marked the second time in a row the team's come within 2.1 of beating them. The Cougars fell 7-2 to the Wildcats. The Cougars haven't had much luck with the Wildcats recently, as the team has come up short the last three times they've met.

Callaway SSmith was cooking despite his team's loss, getting on base in three of his four plate appearances with one home run and two RBI. Kaiden Harrell also deserves some recognition as he scored his first run of the season.

Meanwhile, Newton had already won eight in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 5.1 runs) and they went ahead and made it nine on Tuesday. They sure made it a nail-biter, but they managed to escape with a 5-3 win over the Indians.

Carson Barthelme spent all seven innings on the mound, and it's clear why: he surrendered three runs (all of which were unearned) on seven hits and racked up eight Ks. He also tossed no earned runs, which is notable because Newton is undefeated when he allows at most one earned run, but 8-9 otherwise.

On the hitting side, Quincy Fulton was excellent, going 1-for-3 with one stolen base, two RBI, and one run. He has been hot recently, having posted at least one stolen base the last three times he's played.

Newton pushed their record up to 13-9 with the victory, which was their fifth straight on the road. Those road wins came thanks in part to their hitting performance across that stretch, as they averaged 6.6 runs over those games. As for Farina South Central, their loss dropped their record down to 8-10.