The Hickory Hawks are taking a road trip to challenge the Western Branch Bruins at 5:45 p.m. on Thursday. Hickory will be looking to extend their current four-game winning streak.
On Tuesday, Hickory earned a 7-2 victory over Lakeland.
Meanwhile, Western Branch got themselves on the board against King's Fork on Tuesday, but King's Fork never followed suit. They put the hurt on the Bulldogs with a sharp 10-0 win. The Bruins might be getting used to big wins seeing as the team has won seven matches by six runs or more this season.
Miles Melescu looked comfortable as he struck out six batters over three innings while giving up no earned runs or hits (and only one walk). He has been nothing but reliable on the mound: he hasn't tossed less than five strikeouts in three consecutive appearances.
On the hitting side, the team relied heavily on Carter Walter, who got on base in all three of his plate appearances with one home run, two stolen bases, and three runs. Those two stolen bases gave him a new career-high. The team also got some help courtesy of Markel Smith, who got on base in three of his four plate appearances with one stolen base, two RBI, and one run.
Western Branch always had someone on base and finished the game having posted an OBP of .586. They easily outclassed their opponents in that department as King's Fork only posted an OBP of .062.
Western Branch has been performing incredibly well recently as they've won six of their last seven contests. That's provided a nice bump to their 12-4 record this season. Those victories came thanks in part to their pitching effort, having only surrendered 2.6 runs on average over those games. As for Hickory, their win was their fifth straight at home, which pushed their record up to 12-5.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
