Aurora Central fought the good fight in their extra-innings matchup against Thornton on Thursday but wound up with a less-than-desirable result. They fell just short of the Thornton Trojans by a score of 11-9. Aurora Central has struggled against Thornton recently, as their game on Thursday was their eighth consecutive lost matchup.
Darleen Valanzuela made the most of her time at bat despite the final result and went 3-for-4 with a triple, a stolen base, and a stolen base. She has been hot recently, having posted at least one stolen base the last three times she's played. Esmeralda Flores was another key player, scoring two runs and stealing a base while getting on base in three of her five plate appearances.
Even though they lost, Aurora Central didn't let batters stay on the plate for long and finished the game with seven strikeouts. That's a new trend for them: they were averaging 0 strikeouts per game earlier this season, but in their last five games they've averaged 10.2.
Aurora Central's loss dropped their record down to 3-11. As for Thornton, they have been performing well recently as they've won four of their last five matches, which provided a massive bump to their 5-10 record this season.
Aurora Central will look to defend their home field on Tuesday against Adams City. As for Thornton, they will head out to face off against Conifer at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday. Conifer is on a four-game streak of home wins, Thornton a three-game streak of away wins -- so someone will have to leave a streak behind on the field.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
