Baseball Game Preview: Mapleton Mounties vs. Black River Pirates

The Mapleton Mounties will challenge the Black River Pirates at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday. Mapleton will be strutting in after a victory while Black River will be coming in after a loss.

If Mapleton beats Black River with three runs on Saturday, it's going to be the team's new lucky number: they've won their past two contests with that exact score. The Mounties beat Smithville on Friday by the very same score they won with in their prior game: 3-2. The win made it back-to-back victories for the Mounties.

JJ Leininger

Hits (Career)

05/08/26 @ Smithville	2
05/07/26 @ Bucyrus	1
04/21/26 vs Plymouth	1
04/20/26 @ Plymouth	1
04/06/26 vs New London	1

JJ Leininger made a splash while hitting and pitching. He tossed five innings while giving up just one earned run off four hits. Leininger was also solid in the batter's box, going 2-for-3 with one run and one RBI. Those two hits gave him a new career-high.

Meanwhile, Black River came up short against Independence on Thursday and fell 5-2.

Mapleton's win bumped their record up to 2-15. As for Black River, their defeat ended a six-game streak of wins at home and dropped them to 8-7.

Mapleton came out on top in a nail-biter against Black River when the teams last played back in April of 2022, sneaking past 11-10. Will the Mounties repeat their success, or do the Pirates have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.