Baseball Game Preview: Wheeling Park Patriots vs. Jefferson Cougars

The Wheeling Park Patriots will face off against the Jefferson Cougars at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday.

Wheeling Park is coming in fresh off a high-stakes matchup with another one of West Virginia's top teams: Bridgeport, who was ranked fifth at the time (Wheeling Park was ranked eighth). The Patriots fell 7-2 to the Indians on Friday. The Patriots haven't had much luck with the Indians recently, as the team has come up short the last four times they've met.

Meanwhile, Jefferson had already won two in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 5.5 runs) and they went ahead and made it three on Friday. They came out on top against the Indians by a score of 9-6.

Braedon Oviedo was excellent, getting on base in three of his five plate appearances with two runs, one double, and one RBI. Another player making a difference was Liam Healey, who went 1-for-4 with three runs, one stolen base, and one RBI.

Jefferson pushed their record up to 17-2 with the victory, which was their third straight on the road. The road wins came thanks in part to their hitting performance across that stretch, as they averaged 7.7 runs over those games. As for Wheeling Park, their defeat dropped their record down to 12-6.

Wheeling Park couldn't quite get it done against Jefferson in their previous meeting back in June of 2016 as they fell 5-0. Can the Patriots avenge their loss or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.