Baseball Preview: Mountain Ridge Mountain Lions vs. Queen Creek Bulldogs
The Mountain Ridge Mountain Lions will head out on the road to square off against the Queen Creek Bulldogs on Saturday. Both teams come into the matchup bolstered by wins in their previous matches.
Mountain Ridge is coming in fresh off a high-stakes matchup with another one of Arizona's top teams: Desert Vista, who was ranked 15th in their home state at the time (Mountain Ridge was ranked 21st). Mountain Ridge was the clear victor by an 11-2 margin over Desert Vista on Tuesday. The high-flying hitting performance was a huge turnaround for Mountain Ridge considering their two-run performance the match before.
Kaleb Williams spent all seven innings on the mound, and it's clear why: he surrendered only one earned (and one unearned) run on five hits and racked up eight Ks. He has been nothing but reliable: he hasn't tossed less than six strikeouts in five consecutive pitching appearances.
At the plate, Mountain Ridge let Joe Forbes and Coby Neville loose on the outfield. Forbes got on base in three of his five plate appearances with a home run and two runs, while Neville went 3-for-5 with four RBI, a run, and a double. Another player making a difference was Josh Barette, who went 1-for-4 with a home run and two runs.
Meanwhile, Queen Creek had already won five in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 4.6 runs), and they went ahead and made it six on Tuesday. They skirted past the Bears 2-1.
Mountain Ridge has been performing well recently as they've won ten of their last 13 games, which provided a nice bump to their 14-12 record this season. As for Queen Creek, they pushed their record up to 22-7 with that win, which was their 16th straight at home dating back to last season.
Mountain Ridge suffered a grim 7-1 defeat to Queen Creek in their previous matchup back in March. Can Mountain Ridge avenge their defeat or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
