Baseball Game Preview: Parkview Panthers vs. Bartram Trail Bears

The Parkview Panthers will head out on the road to face off against the Bartram Trail Bears at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday. The teams are on pretty different trajectories at the moment (Parkview has three straight wins, Bartram Trail has three straight losses), but none of that matters once you're on the field.

Parkview's hitters will try to repeat the strong performance they gave on Tuesday, when they got past St. Johns Country Day's usually-dominant pitching crew. The Panthers walked away with an 11-6 victory over the Spartans.

Joseph Mendez and Michael Bonelli did most of the damage at the plate: Mendez went 3-for-4 with one home run, two runs, and two RBI, while Bonelli scored three runs while going 2-for-2. What's more, Bonelli posted two doubles, the most he's had over his last nine contests. The team also got some help courtesy of Malachi Washington, who scored a run and stole a base while getting on base in three of his five plate appearances.

Meanwhile, Bartram Trail suffered their closest defeat since March 13th on Tuesday. They fell just short of Bishop Snyder by a score of 3-1.

Moises Devine was a force to be reckoned with on the mound despite the final result: he pitched six innings while giving up just one earned (and two unearned) runs off five hits. Bartram Trail is 2-1 when Devine allows one or fewer earned runs, but 7-13 otherwise.

On the hitting side, Bartram Trail saw four different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Max Wilkerson, who scored a run and stole a base while going 1-for-2.

Parkview's win was their fifth straight on the road, which pushed their record up to 21-6. The road victories came thanks in part to their hitting performance across that stretch, as they averaged 11.2 runs over those games. As for Bartram Trail, their loss dropped their record down to 9-14.

Parkview couldn't quite finish off Bartram Trail in their previous meeting back in April of 2022 and fell 2-0. Can the Panthers avenge their defeat or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.