Baseball Preview: Chapel Hill Tigers vs. Northern Durham Knights
Chapel Hill and Northern Durham are an even 5-5 against one another since April of 2019, but likely not for long. The Chapel Hill Tigers will head out on the road to face off against the Northern Durham Knights at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Chapel Hill is looking to tack on another W to their nine-game streak on the road dating back to last season.
On Wednesday, Chapel Hill was able to grind out a solid win over Cedar Ridge, taking the game 9-6.
James Staats was a major factor while hitting and pitching. On the mound, he pitched two innings while giving up no earned runs off two hits. Staats was also big at the plate, scoring a run while getting on base in three of his four plate appearances.
In other batting news, David Campos was excellent, scoring a run while going 2-for-3. Another player making a difference was Austin Campos, who went 1-for-2 with a triple, a run, and an RBI.
Meanwhile, Northern Durham came tearing into Tuesday's matchup with four straight wins (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 9.5 runs) and they left with even more momentum. They skirted past the Tigers 5-3.
William Hicklen was excellent, going 2-for-4 with two RBI and a double.
Chapel Hill is on a roll lately: they've won five of their last six games, which provided a nice bump to their 10-3 record this season. As for Northern Durham, their victory bumped their record up to 9-5.
The pitchers for both teams better look sharp on Friday as neither team is afraid to steal. Chapel Hill has been swiping bases left and right this season, having averaged 3.5 stolen bases per game. However, it's not like Northern Durham struggles in that department as they've been averaging 4.6. The only question left is which team can snag more.
Chapel Hill couldn't quite finish off Northern Durham when the teams last played on Tuesday and fell 5-3. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Northern Durham's Liam Hawkes, who struck out nine batters over 6.1 innings while giving up just two earned (and one unearned) runs off five hits. Now that Chapel Hill 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
