Baseball Preview: Prairie Central Hawks vs. Pontiac Indians
Prairie Central has enjoyed the comforts of home their last three games, but now they'll head out on the road. They will take on the Pontiac Indians at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday. Prairie Central will be hoping to continue their three-game streak of scoring more runs each match than the last.
Last Monday, it was a hard-fought contest, but Prairie Central had to settle for a 6-5 defeat against Paxton-Buckley-Loda.
Collin Hartman put in work no matter where he played. On the mound, he tossed five innings while giving up four earned (and one unearned) runs off five hits. Hartman has been nothing but reliable: he hasn't given up more than two walks in three consecutive pitching appearances. Hartman was also big at the plate, going 2-for-3 with two RBI.
In other batting news, Tyler Curl made the most of his time at bat despite the final result and scored two runs while going 1-for-3.
Even though they lost, Prairie Central didn't let batters stay on the plate for long and finished the game with six strikeouts. This was only their ninth loss (out of 12 games) when they post five or more strikeouts.
Meanwhile, Pontiac came up short against Manteno on Wednesday and fell 10-6. Pontiac has not had much luck with Manteno recently, as the team's come up short the last two times they've met.
Prairie Central has traveled a rocky road recently having lost seven of their last eight matchups, which put a noticeable dent in their 4-13 record this season. As for Pontiac, their record now sits at 6-12.
Prairie Central came out on top in a nail-biter against Pontiac in their previous meeting back in April of 2023, sneaking past 3-1. The rematch might be a little tougher for Prairie Central since the team won't have the home-field advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
