Baseball Preview: Queen Creek Bulldogs vs. Mountain Ridge Mountain Lions
The Queen Creek Bulldogs will be playing at home against the Mountain Ridge Mountain Lions on Saturday. Queen Creek will be looking to keep their 16-game home win streak dating back to last season alive.
Queen Creek is coming in fresh off a high-stakes matchup with another one of Arizona's top teams: Basha, who was ranked 17th in their home state at the time (Queen Creek was ranked third). Queen Creek skirted past Basha 2-1.
Meanwhile, Mountain Ridge's hitters rose to the challenge against a Thunder pitching crew that boasted an average of only 3.76 runs allowed on Tuesday. Everything went Mountain Ridge's way against Desert Vista as Mountain Ridge made off with an 11-2 victory. The win made it back-to-back victories for Mountain Ridge.
Kaleb Williams spent all seven innings on the mound, and it's clear why: he surrendered only one earned (and one unearned) run on five hits and racked up eight Ks. He has been consistent recently: he hasn't tossed less than six strikeouts in five consecutive pitching appearances.
On the hitting side, Joe Forbes and Coby Neville did most of the damage at the plate: Forbes got on base in three of his five plate appearances with a home run and two runs, while Neville went 3-for-5 with four RBI, a run, and a double. The team also got some help courtesy of Josh Barette, who went 1-for-4 with a home run and two runs.
Queen Creek has been performing incredibly well recently as they've won 18 of their last 19 matches, which provided a nice bump to their 22-7 record this season. As for Mountain Ridge, their win bumped their record up to 14-12.
Queen Creek took their victory against Mountain Ridge in their previous matchup back in March by a conclusive 7-1. One of the biggest obstacles the team faced in that game was Williams, who pitched 5.2 innings while giving up just one earned (and two unearned) runs off seven hits. Now that he's got a second chance to win this matchup, will Queen Creek still be able to contain Williams? There's only one way to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
