Baseball Preview: Gilbert Christian Knights vs. Valley Christian Trojans
Gilbert Christian is 1-7 against Valley Christian since April of 2021 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Tuesday. The Gilbert Christian Knights will head out on the road to face off against the Valley Christian Trojans at 6:00 p.m. Both teams are coming into the game red-hot, with Gilbert Christian sitting on three straight wins and Valley Christian on five.
On Saturday, Gilbert Christian was able to grind out a solid victory over Snowflake, taking the game 4-1.
Tyler Steil spent all seven innings on the mound, and it's clear why: he surrendered only one earned run on five hits.
At the plate, Gilbert Christian's win was truly a team effort as five different players contributed at least one hit. One of them was Tyler Burr, who went 1-for-4 with two RBI and a double.
Meanwhile, Valley Christian put the finishing touches on their 22nd blowout victory of the season on Saturday. They put the hurt on Tanque Verde with a sharp 10-2 victory. Valley Christian's win was all the more impressive since Tanque Verde was averaging only 3.9 runs allowed on the season.
Valley Christian also got a great performance from Caleb Sweeney as he struck out eight batters over five innings while giving up just one earned (and one unearned) run off two hits.
On the hitting side, Valley Christian let Caleb Danzeisen and Gavin Smith loose on the outfield. Danzeisen went 1-for-3 with a home run and two runs, while Smith scored two runs and stole a base while going 3-for-3. Another player making a difference was Jake Harrison, who scored a run while going 1-for-3.
Gilbert Christian is on a roll lately: they've won four of their last five contests, which provided a nice bump to their 20-6 record this season. As for Valley Christian, their victory was their 17th straight at home, which pushed their record up to 25-1.
Fans could be in store for some top-tier slugging on Tuesday. Gilbert Christian hasn't had any problems when it comes to power this season, having averaged 0.5 home runs per game. However, it's not like Valley Christian struggles in that department as they've been averaging 0.8. With so much power on both teams, it'll be down to the pitchers to keep the mound locked down.
Gilbert Christian might still be hurting after the 8-1 loss they got from Valley Christian in their previous meeting back in April. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Valley Christian's Cameron Bergloff, who didn't allow a single earned run and only two hits while striking out eight over 4.2 innings pitched. Now that Gilbert Christian 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
