The East Paulding Raiders and the North Cobb Warriors are set to duel on Saturday. East Paulding's pitching crew has only allowed 1.6 runs per game this season, so North Cobb's hitters will have their work cut out for them.
East Paulding is probably headed into the matchup with a chip on their shoulder considering South Paulding just ended the team's 11-game winning streak on Wednesday. They fell just short of the Spartans by a score of 3-2. Having soared to a lofty 15 runs in the game before, the Raiders couldn't push the score so high this time.
JJ Sweat spent all seven innings on the mound, and it's clear why: she surrendered three runs (all of which were unearned) on four hits and racked up 15 Ks. The dominant performance gave her a new career-high in strikeouts.
Even though they lost, East Paulding didn't let batters stay on the plate for long and finished the game with 15 strikeouts. That's the most strikeouts they've managed all season.
Meanwhile, North Cobb's hitters rose to the challenge against a Wolfpack pitching crew that boasted an average of only 3.44 runs allowed on Thursday. Everything went North Cobb's way against North Paulding as North Cobb made off with an 11-2 win. Considering the Warriors have won 15 games by more than seven runs this season, Thursday's blowout was nothing new.
East Paulding's loss ended a four-game streak of away wins and brought them to 21-4. As for North Cobb, they have been performing incredibly well recently as they've won 13 of their last 14 contests, which provided a nice bump to their 23-2 record this season.
East Paulding beat North Cobb 4-0 in their previous meeting back in October of 2023. The rematch might be a little tougher for East Paulding since the team won't have the home-field advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
