Baseball Game Preview: Central Catholic Raiders vs. Andover Golden Warriors

The Central Catholic Raiders will challenge the Andover Golden Warriors at 4:00 p.m. on Friday. Both come into the matchup bolstered by wins in their previous matches.

Central Catholic's pitching crew heads into the game hoping to repeat the dominance they displayed on Wednesday. They had just enough and edged out Haverhill 1-0. The Raiders haven't had any issues with the Hillies recently, as the game was their ninth consecutive win against them.

Meanwhile, Andover entered their tilt with Haverhill on Thursday with six consecutive wins, and they'll enter their next game with seven. They blew past the Hillies 8-1. The Golden Warriors might be getting used to big wins seeing as the team has won four contests by seven runs or more this season.

Andover got a great performance from Max Dyer as he pitched 4.2 innings while giving up just one earned run off three hits.

On the hitting side, Will Norris was incredible, going a perfect 4-for-4 with three RBI, two runs, and one stolen base. That's the most RBI he has posted since back in May of 2024. Ryan Jaillet was another key player, going 1-for-4 with three RBI and one run.

Andover hit smart and finished the game with only two strikeouts. The team has now struck out at least five batters in three consecutive matchups.

Andover's victory was their fifth straight at home dating back to last season, which pushed their record up to 10-1. Those home wins came thanks in part to their pitching effort, having only surrendered 0.8 runs on average over those games. As for Central Catholic, their victory bumped their record up to 6-9.

Central Catholic couldn't quite get it done against Andover in their previous meeting back in April as they fell 4-0. Can the Raiders avenge their loss or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.