Baseball Game Preview: Schuylkill Valley Panthers vs. Kutztown Cougars

Schuylkill Valley is 2-7 against Kutztown since April of 2015 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Monday. The Panthers will square off against the Cougars at 6:45 p.m. Both come into the contest bolstered by wins in their previous matches.

If Schuylkill Valley beats Kutztown with five runs on Monday, it's going to be the team's new lucky number: they've won their past two matchups with that exact score. The Panthers walked away with a 5-2 win over Pottsville on Friday. The victory made it back-to-back wins for the Panthers.

Dimitrios Aletras spent all seven innings on the mound, and it's clear why: he surrendered just two earned runs on four hits.

On the hitting side, Schuylkill Valley saw five different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Bodie James, who scored a run while going 2-for-4. The dominant performance also gave James a new career-high in RBI (two). Another was Connor Huggard, who scored a run while going 2-for-3.

Meanwhile, after only one run in their last game, Kutztown made sure to put some runs up on the board against Antietam last Friday. The Cougars never let the Mountaineers get on the board and left with a 10-0 victory. Considering the Cougars have won three contests by more than eight runs this season, Friday's blowout was nothing new.

Kutztown's win was their fifth straight at home dating back to last season, which pushed their record up to 6-1. The home victories came thanks in part to their pitching effort, having only surrendered 1.0 run on average over those games. As for Schuylkill Valley, their win bumped their record up to 5-7.

Schuylkill Valley suffered a grim 7-0 defeat to Kutztown in their previous meeting back in April of 2024. Can the Panthers avenge their loss or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.