The Honesdale Hornets will challenge the Old Forge Blue Devils at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Honesdale will aim to continue their three-game streak of scoring more runs each contest than the last.
Honesdale is headed in fresh off scoring the most runs they have all season. They fell just short of Riverside by a score of 13-12 on Monday. Despite running the score up even higher than they did in their prior game on Friday (11), the Hornets still had to take the loss.
Trevor Dressler was cooking despite his team's loss, going 4-for-5 with six RBI, two runs, and one triple. That triple marked the first that he hit this season. Nick Martin was another key player, going 2-for-4 with two runs, one triple, and one RBI.
Meanwhile, there's no place like home for Old Forge, who bounced back after a loss on the road on Friday. Their pitcher stepped up to hand Holy Cross a 15-0 shutout on Monday. With that win, the Blue Devils brought their scoring average up to 6.2 runs per game.
Jake Bartnikowski made a splash no matter where he played. On the mound, he didn't allow a single earned run and allowed only two hits over four innings pitched. Bartnikowski was also big at the plate, going 1-for-2 with three RBI.
In other batting news, the team relied heavily on Frank Pero, who went a perfect 2-for-2 with two triples, two runs, and two RBI. Those two triples gave him a new career-high. Another player making a difference was TJ DiMattia, who scored three runs and stole a base while getting on base in all four of his plate appearances.
Old Forge was getting hits left and right and finished the game having posted a batting average of .481. The team's really been improving in that area: they've now improved their batting average total in three consecutive games.
Honesdale's defeat was their third straight on the road, which dropped their record down to 3-4. Those road losses can't be blamed on the team's hitting performance across that stretch, as they averaged 7.0 runs over those games. As for Old Forge, their victory was their first in the conference, bumping their conference record up to 1-2 and their overall record up to 3-3.
Honesdale was able to grind out a solid win over Old Forge when the teams last played back in May of 2024, winning 7-3. Do the Hornets have another victory up their sleeve, or will the Blue Devils turn the tables on them? We'll have the answer soon enough.
