The Widefield Gladiators will venture away from home to face off against the Air Academy Kadets at 3:30 p.m. on Friday. The teams are on pretty different trajectories at the moment (Widefield has five straight wins, Air Academy has eight straight defeats), but none of that matters once you're on the field.
Widefield is headed in fresh off scoring the most runs they have all season. They blew past Pine Creek 18-11 on Saturday. The result was nothing new for the Gladiators, who have now won seven games by seven runs or more so far this season.
Isabella Monk was incredible, firing off two home runs, seven RBI, and three runs while going 4-for-5. The dominant performance gave her a new career-high in home runs. The team also got some help courtesy of Brooke Foster, who went 3-for-4 with a home run, three RBI, and a double.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the score, Widefield was getting hits left and right and finished the game having posted a batting average of .553. That was just more of the same: they've now posted a batting average of .387 or higher in five consecutive matches.
Meanwhile, Air Academy came up short against Palmer Ridge on Wednesday, falling 13-3.
Air Academy saw five different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Bailey Williams, who went 1-for-1 with a double. Williams has been nothing but reliable on the mound: she hasn't pitched less than five innings in four consecutive pitching appearances.
Widefield has been performing incredibly well recently as they've won six of their last seven contests, which provided a nice bump to their 8-3 record this season. As for Air Academy, their loss dropped their record down to 3-12.
Fans could be in store for some top-tier slugging on Friday. Widefield hasn't had any problems when it comes to power this season, having averaged 0.6 home runs per game. However, it's not like Air Academy struggles in that department as they've been averaging 0.5. With so much power on both teams, it'll be down to the pitchers to keep the mound locked down.
Widefield suffered a grim 10-3 defeat to Air Academy when the teams last played back in August of 2023. Can Widefield 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
