Baseball Preview: Harmony Area Owls vs. West Branch Warriors
Harmony Area is 0-8 against West Branch since May of 2017 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Monday. The Harmony Area Owls will be staying on the road to face off against the West Branch Warriors at 4:30 p.m.
Harmony Area's hitters might be in the hot seat on Monday considering what happened against Curwensville on Friday. They lost 13-0 to the Golden Tide. The contest marked the first time this year in which Harmony Area was not able to get on the board.
Harmony Area saw two different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Jack Bracken, who went 1-for-2 with a triple.
Meanwhile, West Branch can now show off 11 landslide victories after their most recent match on Saturday. Their pitchers stepped up to hand Curwensville a 9-0 shutout. The victory made it back-to-back wins for West Branch.
The team relied heavily on Coby Kephart, who scored two runs and stole two bases while getting on base in all four of his plate appearances. Another player making a difference was Isaac Tiracorda, who scored two runs and stole a base while getting on base in four of his five plate appearances.
Harmony Area's loss dropped their record down to 2-6. As for West Branch, they are on a roll lately: they've won eight of their last ten matchups, which provided a nice bump to their 11-3 record this season.
The batters for both teams will have to hit smart on Monday as both have some strikeout artists on the roster. Harmony Area has been retiring batters left and right this season, having averaged 9.5 strikeouts per game. However, it's not like West Branch struggles in that department as they've been averaging 8.4. Considering how easily both teams rack up Ks, the hitters on both teams better bring their A-game into this one.
Harmony Area suffered a grim 25-3 defeat to West Branch in their previous matchup back in March. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of West Branch's Lukas Colton, who tossed three innings while giving up no earned runs or hits. Now that Harmony Area 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
