Baseball Preview: South Side Rams vs. Freedom Area Bulldogs
South Side has enjoyed the comforts of home their last five games, but now they'll head out on the road. They will challenge the Freedom Area Bulldogs at 4:00 p.m. on Friday. Both teams come into the match bolstered by wins in their previous matches.
South Side will head into Monday's matchup hoping to keep the good times rolling: they proved they can win big last Tuesday (they won by 17) but on Monday they proved they can win the close ones too. They narrowly escaped with a victory as the team sidled past Our Lady of the Sacred Heart 3-1. Despite the win, that was the fewest runs South Side has scored all year.
South Side saw four different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Carter Wilson, who went 1-for-2 with a double. Wilson has been consistent recently: he hasn't pitched less than five innings in three consecutive pitching appearances.
Meanwhile, Freedom Area can now show off five landslide victories after their most recent game on Tuesday. They put the hurt on Aliquippa with a sharp 21-0 victory. While fans of Freedom Area might be used to big wins, the 21-run margin marked the team's biggest one yet.
Freedom Area got a massive performance out of Mason O'Donnell, who went 2-for-2 with three runs, four RBI, and a stolen base. The team also got some help courtesy of Cody Patterson, who went 1-for-2 with four RBI, two runs, and a triple.
South Side now has a winning record of 4-3. As for Freedom Area, the win was the fourth in a row for them, bringing their record for this year to 6-3.
The batters for both teams will have to hit smart on Friday as both have some strikeout artists on the roster. South Side has been retiring batters left and right this season, having averaged 10.5 strikeouts per game. However, it's not like Freedom Area struggles in that department as they've been averaging 8.4. Considering how easily both teams rack up Ks, the hitters on both teams better bring their A-game into this one.
South Side couldn't quite finish off Freedom Area when the teams last played last Saturday and fell 6-4. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Freedom Area's Boden Hilliard, who struck out ten batters over five innings while giving up just two earned runs off five hits. Now that South Side knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
