A feisty cat fight will be fought as Inspiration Academy Lions challenge Mulberry Panthers at 12:00 p.m. on Tuesday. The two teams have allowed few runs on average, (Inspiration Academy 3.6, Mulberry 3.5) so any runs scored will be well earned.
Mulberry will be up against a hot Inspiration Academy squad: the team just extended their winning streak to four. Inspiration Academy came out on top against Winter Haven by a score of 7-2 on Monday. The game snapped a strange streak: the last four times these teams have met, it?s been the away team that?s taken home the W.
Jackson Hungle tossed a big game, not allowing a single earned run over five innings pitched. The dominant performance also gave him a new career-low in earned runs (zero).
On the hitting side, Ty Harvey was excellent, going 3-for-4 with one triple, one run, and one double. Another player making a difference was Sean Dromgool, who went 1-for-3 with one triple, one run, and one RBI.
Meanwhile, Mulberry suffered their closest loss since February 11th on Monday. They fell just short of Lakeland Christian by a score of 6-4. The defeat continues a trend for the Panthers in their meetings with the Vikings: they've now lost eight in a row.
Mulberry also got a good showing from Jaden Sweeney, who struck out six batters over 2.2 innings while giving up no earned runs or hits. Sweeney has been nothing but reliable on the mound: he hasn't given up more than two walks in five consecutive appearances.
At the plate, Mulberry saw four different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Gavin Stedman, who scored two runs while going 1-for-2. Griffin Cline was another, scoring a run and stealing a base while going 1-for-3.
Inspiration Academy pushed their record up to 10-3 with the victory, which was their seventh straight at home dating back to last season. The wins came thanks in part to their pitching effort, having only surrendered 2.6 runs on average over those games. As for Mulberry, their loss dropped their record down to 10-5.
