The Mission Oak Hawks will face off against the Hanford Bullpups at 4:30 p.m. on Friday. Both teams are coming into the match red-hot, with Mission Oak sitting on seven straight victories and Hanford on three.
For some reason, the away team has come away with the win the last four times Mission Oak and Tulare Union have met, but the home crowd finally got their W on Wednesday. The Hawks walked away with a 4-1 win over the Tribe.
Mission Oak saw eight different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Maleena Martin, who went a perfect 2-for-2 with one stolen base, two RBI, and one run. Taylor Shepherd was another, going 2-for-3 with one stolen base and one run.
Mission Oak was getting hits left and right and finished the game having posted a batting average of .407. That was just more of the same: they've now posted a batting average of .321 or higher in eight consecutive games.
Meanwhile, Hanford got the win against Tulare Western on Wednesday by a conclusive 14-3.
Kayleigh Roberts spent all six innings played on the mound, and it's clear why: she surrendered three earned runs on seven hits.
On the hitting side, Hanford got a massive performance out of Jenna Douthat, who went 2-for-4 with three runs, three RBI, and two doubles. That's the most runs Douthat has posted since back in March. The team also got some help courtesy of Jazzmyn Rojas, who went 4-for-5 with six RBI and one run.
Mission Oak pushed their record up to 14-9-1 with the victory, which was their third straight at home. Those home wins came thanks in part to their hitting performance across that stretch, as they averaged 9.0 runs over those games. As for Hanford, their victory bumped their record up to 9-13-2.
Mission Oak was able to grind out a solid win over Hanford in their previous matchup two weeks ago, winning 8-3. Will the Hawks repeat their success, or do the Bullpups have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.
