Baseball Preview: Apex Cougars vs. Apex Friendship Patriots
The Apex Cougars will square off against the Apex Friendship Patriots at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday. Both teams come into the contest bolstered by wins in their previous matches.
Apex is hoping to deliver their fans another blowout on Thursday, just like they did against Holly Springs (and have done all season long). Apex was the clear victor by an 11-3 margin over Holly Springs on Wednesday. 11 seems to be a good number for Apex as the team scooped up a win with the same number of runs in their previous game.
Jace Shoffner spent all seven innings on the mound, and it's clear why: he surrendered only one earned (and two unearned) runs on four hits. He has been nothing but reliable: he hasn't given up more than two walks in four consecutive pitching appearances.
On the hitting side, Apex got a big performance out of Jayden Trofatter, who scored three runs while going 2-for-3. The team also got some help courtesy of Adrian Gonzalez, who went 1-for-4 with a home run and two RBI.
Meanwhile, Apex Friendship waltzed into their matchup on Wednesday with six straight wins... but they left with seven. They walked away with a 6-2 victory over the Imps.
Apex Friendship also let their pitcher toss all seven innings and he was also dialed-in: Owen Cirasole gave up only one earned (and one unearned) run on nine hits.
At the plate, Apex Friendship saw five different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Connor Payne, who scored two runs and stole a base while going 1-for-2. JJ Vondette was another key contributor, going 2-for-3 with two RBI.
Apex has been performing well recently as they've won three of their last four games, which provided a nice bump to their 16-7 record this season. As for Apex Friendship, they pushed their record up to 15-11 with that win, which was their fourth straight at home.
Apex came up short against Apex Friendship in their previous meeting back in April, falling 4-0. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Cirasole, who didn't allow a single earned run over seven innings pitched. Now that Apex knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
