The Normal West Wildcats will challenge the Maine South Hawks at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday. The teams are on pretty different trajectories at the moment (Normal West has three straight victories, Maine South has three straight losses), but none of that matters once you're on the field.
Maine South's hitters are going to have their work cut out for them on Saturday: Normal West hadn't allowed a single run the last three times they've hit the field. The Wildcats' pitchers stepped up to hand Danville an 11-0 shutout on Friday. Considering the Wildcats have won eight matchups by more than five runs this season, Friday's blowout was nothing new.
Normal West got a massive performance out of Cooper Temples, who went 2-for-4 with two triples, two runs, and one stolen base. Those two triples gave Temples a new career-high. The team also got some help courtesy of Sam McCully, who went 2-for-4 with three RBI, one triple, and one run.
They weren't the only ones making solid contact: Normal West kept the outfield on their toes and finished the game with 12 hits. The team's really been improving in that area: they've now improved their hit total in four consecutive games.
Meanwhile, Maine South came up short against Deerfield on Thursday and fell 6-3.
Maine South saw four different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Evan Adamczewski, who went 1-for-4 with one stolen base and one RBI.
Normal West pushed their record up to 16-8 with the win, which was their fourth straight at home. The home victories came thanks in part to their hitting performance across that stretch, as they averaged 12.0 runs over those games. As for Maine South, their defeat dropped their record down to 12-12.
Normal West came out on top in a nail-biter against Maine South in their previous meeting back in April of 2024, sneaking past 2-1. Will the Wildcats repeat their success, or do the Hawks have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
