Baseball Game Preview: Halstead Dragons vs. Smoky Valley Vikings

Halstead has gone 8-2 against Smoky Valley recently and they'll look to pad the win column further on Tuesday. The Dragons will host the Vikings at 4:00 p.m. Both teams took a loss in their last game, so they'll have plenty of motivation to get the 'W'.

Halstead is coming in off a wild two-game stretch: after soaring to 14 runs on Thursday, they were much more limited against Hillsboro on Thursday. They fell 6-1 to the Trojans.

Noah Diehl

Stolen Base

04/17/25 @ Hillsboro	1
04/17/25 @ Hillsboro	1
04/11/25 vs Haven	3
04/11/25 vs Haven	2
04/08/25 vs Nickerson	1
+ 4 more games

Halstead saw five different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Noah Diehl, who went 1-for-3 with one stolen base and one run. Diehl is on a roll when it comes to stolen bases, as he's now snagged at least one in each of the last nine games he's played.

Meanwhile, Smoky Valley fought the good fight in their extra-innings game against Hillsboro last Friday but wound up with a less-than-desirable result. They fell just short of the Trojans by a score of 11-10.

Ty Heitschmidt was cooking despite his team's loss, going 3-for-5 with one home run, four RBI, and two runs. He also snagged a stolen base, marking his first of the season. Kaleb Burgardt was another key player, going 3-for-4 with two stolen bases and three runs.

Smoky Valley's loss dropped their record down to 1-5. As for Halstead, their defeat dropped their record down to 3-11.

Halstead took their victory against Smoky Valley in their previous meeting back in April of 2024 by a conclusive 18-10 score. Do the Dragons have another victory up their sleeve, or will the Vikings turn the tables on them? We'll have the answer soon enough.