Baseball Preview: Cardinal Newman Cardinals vs. Redwood Giants
Cardinal Newman is on a 12-game streak of home wins, while Redwood is on a 12-game streak of away wins: one of those streaks is about to end. The Cardinal Newman Cardinals will take on the Redwood Giants at 12:00 p.m. on Saturday. The two teams each escaped (but just barely!) with wins against their previous opponents.
Cardinal Newman is on a roll after a high-stakes playoff matchup on Thursday. They skirted past Elk Grove 5-3.
Sam Valenti was excellent, scoring a run while going 2-for-2. The team also got some help courtesy of Charlie Slater, who scored a run and stole a base while going 2-for-4.
Meanwhile, Redwood faced St. Ignatius College Preparatory in a battle between two of the state's top teams on Thursday. Redwood won by a run and slipped past St. Ignatius College Preparatory 6-5. That's two games straight that Redwood has won by just one run.
Redwood saw four different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Rex Solle, who went 4-for-4 with three RBI, two doubles, and a triple. Another player making a difference was Theo Trono, who scored two runs while getting on base in two of his four plate appearances.
Cardinal Newman is on a roll lately: they've won 19 of their last 20 contests, which provided a nice bump to their 27-5 record this season. As for Redwood, their victory bumped their record up to 28-4.
The batters for both teams will have to hit smart on Saturday as both have some strikeout artists on the roster. Cardinal Newman has been retiring batters left and right this season, having averaged 9.1 strikeouts per game. However, it's not like Redwood struggles in that department as they've been averaging 7.7. Considering how easily both teams rack up Ks, the hitters on both teams better bring their A-game into this one.
Cardinal Newman came out on top in a nail-biter against Redwood in their previous meeting on Saturday, sneaking past 1-0. One of the biggest obstacles the team faced in that game was Solle, who didn't allow a single earned run over seven innings pitched. Now that he's got a second chance to win this matchup, will Cardinal Newman still be able to contain Solle? There's only one way to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
