The South Warren Spartans will head out on the road to square off against the Warren East Raiders at 6:00 p.m. on Friday. The teams are on pretty different trajectories at the moment (South Warren has five straight wins, Warren East has seven straight defeats), but none of that matters once you're on the field.
South Warren's pitching crew heads into the matchup hoping to repeat the dominance they displayed on Tuesday. Everything went their way against Franklin-Simpson as they made off with a 10-0 victory. Considering the Spartans have won nine games by more than five runs this season, Tuesday's blowout was nothing new.
The result came thanks to Mikey Coradini's shutout, as he gave up just four hits.
At the plate, Griffin Rardin was incredible, going 1-for-2 with three runs, three RBI, and one stolen base. Brady Jones also deserves some recognition as he got his first hit of the season.
South Warren was getting hits left and right and finished the game having posted a batting average of .429. That was just more of the same: they've now posted a batting average of .367 or higher in five consecutive contests.
Meanwhile, Warren East didn't have quite enough to beat Greenwood on Thursday and fell 4-3.
Dane Parsley was cooking despite his team's loss, going 3-for-4 with one home run. William Alexander was another key player, going 2-for-3 with one run.
South Warren pushed their record up to 13-2 with the win, which was their sixth straight at home. The home victories came thanks in part to their pitching effort, having only surrendered 3.3 runs on average over those games. As for Warren East, their loss dropped their record down to 5-11.
Warren East's pitching crew has a crucial task ahead of them: South Warren hasn't had any issues making contact this season, having earned a batting average of .348. It's a different story for Warren East, though, as they've only averaged .222. Will they be able to contain South Warren's hitters?
South Warren came out on top in a nail-biter against Warren East when the teams last played back in March, sneaking past 7-6. The rematch might be a little tougher for the Spartans since the team won't have the home-field advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
