The North Ridgeville Rangers will head out on the road to challenge the Elyria Pioneers at 4:45 p.m. on Tuesday. The teams are on pretty different trajectories at the moment (North Ridgeville has three straight victories, Elyria has four straight defeats), but none of that matters once you're on the field.
North Ridgeville can't be too worried about heading out to take on Elyria: they just beat Steele at home, who had been dominant on their own field up to that point. North Ridgeville came out on top against Steele by a score of 8-5 on Thursday.
Naomi Bottomlee was a major factor while hitting and pitching. She struck out seven batters over seven innings while giving up five earned runs off nine hits (and only one walk). Bottomlee has been nothing but reliable on the mound: she hasn't pitched less than five innings every time she's pitched this season. Bottomlee was also big at the plate, scoring a run while getting on base in four of her five plate appearances.
In other batting news, North Ridgeville got a big performance out of Bella Kucirek, who scored two runs while going 3-for-4. Another player making a difference was Kasey Melvin, who went 1-for-4 with three RBI.
Elyria lost 14-1 to Berea-Midpark on Thursday.
North Ridgeville has been performing well recently as they've won ten of their last 12 matches, which provided a nice bump to their 12-5 record this season. As for Elyria, their loss dropped their record down to 2-11.
North Ridgeville was able to grind out a solid win over Elyria in their previous meeting two weeks ago, winning 6-1. The rematch might be a little tougher for North Ridgeville since the squad won't have the home-field advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
