The Central Catholic Buttons will head out on the road to face off against the TMI-Episcopal Panthers at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Central Catholic will be looking to extend their current six-game winning streak.
TMI-Episcopal's hitters are going to have their work cut out for them on Tuesday: Central Catholic hadn't allowed a single run the last four times they've hit the field. The Buttons never let Antonian Prep get on the board and left with a 3-0 victory last Saturday.
Not much got past Jacob Schwope, who gave up just four hits to keep Antonian Prep off the board. Schwope has been consistent recently: he hasn't given up more than one earned run in four consecutive appearances.
On the hitting side, Central Catholic's win was truly a team effort as three different players contributed at least one hit. One of them was Sunghoon Kim, who scored a run while getting on base in all three of his plate appearances. Jayson Sapp was another, scoring a run and stealing a base while getting on base in two of his four plate appearances.
Meanwhile, TMI-Episcopal got the win against Antonian Prep on Saturday by a conclusive 11-4.
Brighton Dietrich was a major factor while hitting and pitching. He looked comfortable on the mound, not allowing a single earned run over 5.1 innings pitched. The dominant performance also gave him a new career-high in strikeouts (five). He was also big at the plate, scoring three runs and stealing two bases while getting on base in four of his five plate appearances. He has become a key player for TMI-Episcopal: the team is 3-1 when he posts at least two runs, but 4-8 otherwise.
In other batting news, Levi Gass was incredible, scoring two runs and stealing a base while going 3-for-3. Those three hits gave him a new career-high. Another player making a difference was Hudson Parker, who scored a run while going 1-for-3.
Central Catholic pushed their record up to 18-5-1 with the victory, which was their fourth straight at home. The home wins came thanks in part to their hitting performance across that stretch, as they averaged 7.0 runs over those games. As for TMI-Episcopal, their record now sits at 7-9.
Central Catholic came out on top in a nail-biter against TMI-Episcopal in their previous matchup back in March of 2016, sneaking past 8-7. Will the Buttons repeat their success, or do the Panthers have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.
