Baseball Game Preview: Sun Valley Spartans vs. Palisades Pumas

The Sun Valley Spartans will square off against the Palisades Pumas at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday. Both come into the game bolstered by wins in their previous matches.

Last Friday, Sun Valley earned a 7-2 victory over Butler. The Spartans haven't had any issues with the Bulldogs recently, as the game was their third consecutive win against them.

Connor Salerno tossed a big game, not allowing a single earned run and allowed only two hits while striking out ten over five innings pitched.

Jessen Copeland

Doubles (Career)

02/28/25 vs Butler	2
04/26/24 vs Porter Ridge	1
04/24/24 @ Porter Ridge	1
04/01/24 vs Covenant Day	1
02/29/24 @ Parkwood	1

At the plate, Jessen Copeland was a standout: he scored a run while going 2-for-3. The dominant performance also gave him a new career-high in doubles (two). Dave Aguilar was another key player, scoring three runs and stealing a base while going 2-for-4.

Meanwhile, winning is always nice, but doing so behind a season-high score is even better (just ask Palisades). Everything went their way against Berry on Tuesday as Palisades made off with a 19-8 victory. The team's explosion at the plate also rewarded the Pumas with their most commanding win of the season.

Palisades got a massive performance out of Max Wearing, who went a perfect 2-for-2 with one home run, four RBI, and two runs. Wearing is on a roll when it comes to home runs, as he's now launched at least one in each of the last three games he's played. Another player making a difference was Gabe Diaz, who went a perfect 1-for-1 with one home run and three RBI.

Palisades always had someone on base and finished the game having posted an OBP of .694. Their OBP was a full 0 higher than the also-impressive .543 that Berry posted.

The win made it two in a row for Palisades and bumps their season record up to 3-1. They've dominated over that stretch too, winning by an average of 10.5 runs. As for Sun Valley, their victory bumped their record up to 2-0.