Baseball Preview: El Capitan Vaqueros vs. Eastlake Titans
El Capitan is 0-3 against Eastlake since March of 2015 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Wednesday. The El Capitan Vaqueros will head out on the road to face off against the Eastlake Titans at 3:30 p.m. Both teams are coming into the match red-hot, with El Capitan sitting on five straight wins and Eastlake on 11.
El Capitan will head into Tuesday's matchup hoping to keep the good times rolling: they proved they can win big on Friday (they won by 20) but on Tuesday they proved they can win the close ones too. They came out on top in a nail-biter against West Hills and snuck past 3-1.
Brody McAuliffe spent all seven innings on the mound, and it's clear why: he surrendered only one earned run on three hits and racked up seven Ks. He has been nothing but reliable: he hasn't pitched less than five innings in six consecutive pitching appearances.
At the plate, El Capitan's victory was truly a team effort as three different players contributed at least one hit. One of them was Aidan Terrones, who scored a run while going 2-for-4. The team also got some help courtesy of Landon Harbach, who scored a run while getting on base in two of his three plate appearances.
Meanwhile, Eastlake put the finishing touches on their tenth blowout victory of the season on Tuesday. They put the hurt on Otay Ranch with a sharp 9-1 win. With that victory, Eastlake brought their scoring average up to 6.2 runs per game.
Noah Libed made a splash no matter where he played. He pitched an inning while giving up no earned runs or hits. Libed was also big at the plate, scoring a run and stealing a base while going 1-for-4.
In other pitching news, Nick Romero tossed a big game, tossing six innings while giving up just one earned run off three hits.
Back at the plate, the team relied heavily on Noah Betanco, who went 2-for-3 with a home run, three RBI, and two runs. Another player making a difference was Jacob May, who went 3-for-4 with a triple, a run, and an RBI.
El Capitan has been performing well recently as they've won six of their last eight contests, which provided a nice bump to their 17-9 record this season. As for Eastlake, their win was their fourth straight on the road, which pushed their record up to 20-5.
The pitchers for both teams better look sharp on Wednesday as neither team is afraid to steal. El Capitan has been swiping bases left and right this season, having averaged 2.9 stolen bases per game. However, it's not like Eastlake struggles in that department as they've been averaging 3.1. The only question left is which team can snag more.
El Capitan suffered a grim 16-1 defeat to Eastlake when the teams last played back in March of 2018. Can El Capitan avenge their defeat or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
