The Pearl River Rebels will take on the Northshore Panthers at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday. The two teams have allowed few runs on average, (Pearl River: 3.4, Northshore: 1.5) so any runs scored will be well earned.
Pearl River fought the good fight in their extra-innings match against Northlake Christian on Friday but wound up with a less-than-desirable result. They fell 6-3 to the Wolverines.
Meanwhile, Northshore came tearing into Thursday's game with ten straight wins (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 3.8 runs), and they left with even more momentum. They walked away with a 5-1 win over the Wolves. While the Panthers didn't have the best season last year (they finished 12-20), it's starting to look like those struggles are a thing of the past.
Connor Smith spent all seven innings on the mound, and it's clear why: he surrendered a run (which was unearned) on three hits and racked up ten Ks. The dominant performance gave him a new career-high in strikeouts.
On the hitting side, Northshore's victory was truly a team effort as two different players contributed at least one hit. One of them was Aviel Johnson, who scored a run and stole a base while going 1-for-3. Brody Dukes was another, scoring two runs and stealing a base.
Northshore's win was their sixth straight at home dating back to last season, which pushed their record up to 11-1-1. Those victories came thanks in part to their pitching effort, having only surrendered 0.7 runs on average over those games. As for Pearl River, their loss ended a three-game streak of wins at home and dropped them to 4-5-1.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
