Baseball Game Preview: Petersburg Vikings vs. East Hardy Cougars

The Petersburg Vikings will challenge the East Hardy Cougars at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday. Both teams are coming into the match red-hot, with Petersburg sitting on four straight victories and East Hardy on three.

Petersburg barely beat Hampshire the last time the pair played, but that sure wasn't the case this time around. The Vikings put the hurt on the Trojans with a sharp 10-3 win on Wednesday. Considering the Vikings have won nine games by more than six runs this season, Wednesday's blowout was nothing new.

Meanwhile, East Hardy hadn't done well against Keyser recently (they were 1-8 in their previous nine matchups), but they didn't let the past get in their way on Wednesday. The Cougars sure made it a nail-biter, but they managed to escape with a 9-7 victory over the Golden Tornado. That's two games straight that the Cougars have won by exactly two runs.

Petersburg's win was their fourth straight on the road, which pushed their record up to 16-5. The road victories came thanks in part to their pitching effort, having only surrendered 2.5 runs on average over those games. As for East Hardy, their win bumped their record up to 8-14.

Everything went Petersburg's way against East Hardy in their previous matchup back in April, as Petersburg made off with a 10-2 victory. Will the Vikings repeat their success, or do the Cougars have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.