The Evansville Memorial Tigers will square off against the Evansville Mater Dei Wildcats at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday. The teams are on pretty different trajectories at the moment (Evansville Memorial has three straight wins, Evansville Mater Dei has four straight defeats), but none of that matters once you're on the field.
Evansville Memorial barely beat Princeton the last time the pair played, but that sure wasn't the case this time around. Evansville Memorial's pitcher stepped up to hand Princeton a 17-0 shutout on Thursday. The result was nothing new for Evansville Memorial, who have now won six matchups by ten runs or more so far this season.
Evansville Memorial got a massive performance out of Madison Thomas, who went 3-for-4 with one home run, three runs, and four RBI. The team also got some help courtesy of Teagan Davis, who went 3-for-4 with three runs, four RBI, and two doubles.
They weren't the only ones making solid contact: Evansville Memorial kept the outfield on their toes and finished the game with 22 hits. They are 6-1 when they post 11 or more hits.
Meanwhile, Evansville Mater Dei didn't have quite enough to beat North Posey on Thursday and fell 5-4.
Evansville Mater Dei saw five different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Chelsea Merkley, who went 2-for-3 with one run.
Evansville Memorial pushed their record up to 7-5 with the victory, which was their fourth straight on the road. The road wins came thanks in part to their hitting performance across that stretch, as they averaged 17.0 runs over those games. As for Evansville Mater Dei, they now have a losing record of 5-6.
Evansville Mater Dei's hitters will have their work cut out for them on Saturday. Evansville Memorial has been retiring batters left and right this season, having averaged 6.8 strikeouts per game. It's a different story for Evansville Mater Dei, though, as they've been averaging only 2.9 strikeouts. Will Evansville Memorial keep running through batters, or will the Wildcats buck the trend?
Evansville Memorial beat Evansville Mater Dei 5-1 when the teams last played back in May of 2024. The rematch might be a little tougher for the Tigers since the squad won't have the home-field advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
