The Sickles Gryphons will take on the Armwood Hawks in a tournament on Monday. The teams are on pretty different trajectories at the moment (Sickles has six straight wins, Armwood has four straight losses), but none of that matters once you're on the field.
On Saturday, Sickles needed a bit of extra time to put away Tampa Catholic. They won by a run and slipped past the Crusaders 13-12. The pitching woes were uncharacteristic for the Gryphons, who until this matchup were averaging 3.92 runs allowed.
Sickles got a massive performance out of Jordan Yost, who got on base in all four of his plate appearances with one home run, three runs, and four RBI. That's the most RBI Yost has posted since back in February. The team also got some help courtesy of Jake Taylor, who went 2-for-4 with one home run, three runs, and two RBI.
Yost wasn't the only one working in the home run department: Sickles lost a few balls and finished the game with four home runs. That's the most home runs they've managed all season.
Meanwhile, Armwood came up short against Carrollwood Day on Saturday and fell 6-2.
Zalen Hicks was a force to be reckoned with on the mound despite the final result: he didn't allow a single earned run over six innings pitched.
At the plate, Armwood saw three different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Rhys Brush, who scored a run while going 1-for-3. Princeton Clark also deserves some recognition as he hit his first double of the season.
Sickles' victory was their eighth straight on the road, which pushed their record up to 10-3. Those victories came thanks in part to their hitting performance across that stretch, as they averaged 11.1 runs over those games. As for Armwood, their defeat dropped their record down to 3-9.
Armwood's hitters will have their work cut out for them on Monday. Sickles has been retiring batters left and right this season, having averaged 6.7 strikeouts per game. It's a different story for Armwood, though, as they've been averaging only 4.2 strikeouts. Will Sickles keep running through batters, or will Armwood buck the trend? Check MaxPreps after the action for a full breakdown of the game and more baseball content.
