Evergreen Park has enjoyed the comforts of home their last four games, but now they'll head out on the road. They will square off against the Oak Forest Bengals at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday. Both squads will be entering this one on the heels of a big victory.
Evergreen Park is on a roll after a high-stakes playoff matchup on Thursday. They never let Bremen onto the board and left with a 6-0 win. Six seems to be a good number for Evergreen Park as the team scooped up a victory with the same number of runs in their previous game.
Not much got past Grady Elwood, who gave up just four hits and racked up 13 Ks to keep Bremen off the board.
At the plate, Evergreen Park saw seven different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Luke Medina, who scored two runs and stole a base while going 1-for-3. Medina has been hot recently, having posted at least one stolen base the last three times he's played. Another player making a difference was Yarim Garcia, who scored a run and stole two bases while going 1-for-2.
Meanwhile, Oak Forest waltzed into their game on Wednesday with six straight wins... but they left with seven. They put the hurt on the Sun Warriors with a sharp 11-0 win.
Justin Gibbs was a major factor while hitting and pitching. He didn't allow a single earned run and only one hit while striking out six over four innings pitched. Gibbs was also solid in the batter's box, going 1-for-3 with a triple and an RBI.
In other pitching news, Andrew Dawson looked comfortable as he pitched an inning while giving up no earned runs or hits.
Back at the plate, Andrew Lucas and Mateo Gamboa did most of the damage at the plate: Lucas went 2-for-3 with two runs, a triple, and a stolen base, while Gamboa scored three runs and stole a base while going 3-for-3. Josh Dawson was another key contributor, scoring a run and stealing a base while going 1-for-3.
Evergreen Park is on a roll lately: they've won four of their last five matchups, which provided a nice bump to their 26-10 record this season. As for Oak Forest, they pushed their record up to 30-6 with that victory, which was their seventh straight at home.
The batters for both teams will have to hit smart on Saturday as both have some strikeout artists on the roster. Evergreen Park has been retiring batters left and right this season, having averaged 8.2 strikeouts per game. However, it's not like Oak Forest struggles in that department as they've been averaging 7.1. Considering how easily both teams rack up Ks, the hitters on both teams better bring their A-game into this one.
Evergreen Park came up short against Oak Forest in their previous meeting back in April, falling 5-0. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Dawson, who didn't allow a single earned run and only two hits while striking out 11 over seven innings pitched. Now that Evergreen Park knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
