Baseball Preview: Valmeyer Pirates vs. Steeleville Warriors
The Valmeyer Pirates will play host again on Thursday to welcome the Steeleville Warriors, where first pitch is scheduled at 4:30 p.m. Both teams come into the matchup bolstered by wins in their previous matches.
Valmeyer is hoping to deliver their fans another blowout on Thursday, just like they did against Gibault Catholic (and have done all season long). Everything went Valmeyer's way against Gibault Catholic on Monday as Valmeyer made off with an 8-1 victory.
Luke Blackwell made a splash while hitting and pitching. He looked comfortable on the mound, not allowing a single earned run while striking out 12 over seven innings pitched. Blackwell has been consistent recently: he hasn't given up more than one earned run in four consecutive pitching appearances. Blackwell was also big at the plate, scoring a run and stealing a base while going 1-for-3.
In other batting news, Chase Snyder was incredible, going 4-for-4 with a home run, five RBI, and three runs. Troy Neff was another key contributor, going 2-for-3 with an RBI.
Meanwhile, it was close, but on Tuesday Steeleville sidestepped New Athens for a 4-3 win.
Like Valmeyer, Steeleville also got a great game from a two-way player: Canon Ruby. On the mound, he struck out six batters over 5.1 innings while giving up just one earned (and one unearned) run off five hits. Ruby was also solid in the batter's box, going 2-for-3 with a stolen base and two RBI.
In other batting news, the team relied heavily on Carson Rednour, who scored a run and stole a base while getting on base in all three of his plate appearances.
Valmeyer's victory ended a three-game drought at home and bumped them up to 12-8. As for Steeleville, they have been performing well recently as they've won three of their last four contests, which provided a nice bump to their 8-6 record this season.
Valmeyer suffered a grim 14-4 defeat to Steeleville in their previous matchup on April 5th. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Steeleville's Cale Newby, who scored three runs and stole a base while going 1-for-4. Now that Valmeyer knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
