Baseball Preview: Portola Bulldogs vs. Northwood Timberwolves
The Portola Bulldogs will be playing in front of their home fans against the Northwood Timberwolves at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Both teams have allowed few runs on average, (Portola: 3.9, Northwood: 1.6) so any runs scored will be well earned.
On Friday, Portola needed a bit of extra time to put away Irvine. They won by a run and slipped past the Vaqueros 2-1. The victory made it back-to-back wins for Portola.
Portola saw three different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Rocky Palacio, who got on base in three of his five plate appearances with a stolen base. Palacio has been hot recently, having posted at least one stolen base the last three times he's played. The team also got some help courtesy of Andrew Solomon, who got on base in two of his three plate appearances with two stolen bases.
Meanwhile, Northwood scored the most runs they've had all season to find success on Saturday. They never let Capistrano Valley Christian onto the board and left with an 11-0 victory. The win was familiar territory for Northwood who now have six in a row.
Northwood also got a great performance from Garret Stevenson as he didn't allow a single earned run over five innings pitched.
At the plate, Luke Hansen and Andres Hernandez did most of the damage at the plate: Hansen scored a run while going 2-for-3, while Hernandez scored a run while going 1-for-2. Another player making a difference was Kai Mo, who scored two runs while going 1-for-2.
Portola now has a winning record of 11-10-1. As for Northwood, they have been performing incredibly well recently as they've won seven of their last eight matches, which provided a nice bump to their 17-5-1 record this season.
The batters for both teams will have to hit smart on Tuesday as both have some strikeout artists on the roster. Portola has been retiring batters left and right this season, having averaged 8.4 strikeouts per game. However, it's not like Northwood struggles in that department as they've been averaging 8.8. Considering how easily both teams rack up Ks, the hitters on both teams better bring their A-game into this one.
Portola suffered a grim 8-2 defeat to Northwood when the teams last played back in March of 2023. Will Portola have more luck at home instead of on the road? Check MaxPreps after the action for a full breakdown of the game and more baseball content.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
