Baseball Game Preview: Highland Park Scots vs. Harding Knights

Highland Park is a perfect 10-0 against Harding since May of 2017 and they'll have a chance to extend that dominance on Friday. The Scots will venture away from home to square off against the Knights at 4:30 p.m. Highland Park will be strutting in after a win while Harding will be coming in after a loss.

Harding will be up against a hot Highland Park team: the squad just extended their winning streak to three. The Scots put the hurt on St. Paul Central with a sharp 9-2 victory on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Harding fought the good fight in their extra-innings matchup against Washington Tech on Wednesday but wound up with a less-than-desirable result. They fell just short of the Eagles by a score of 13-12. Despite running the score up even higher than they did in their prior game on Monday (ten), the Knights still had to take the loss.

Aiden Brown put in work no matter where he played. On the mound, he struck out 11 batters over 5.2 innings while giving up just two earned (and five unearned) runs off four hits. Brown was also big at the plate, going 3-for-4 with two runs, two doubles, and one RBI.

In other batting news, Alex Oxley and JuJu Terrell did some serious damage despite the final result: Oxley got on base in three of his six plate appearances with three runs, while Terrell earned one RBI, two runs, and two stolen bases. James Johnson-Tooley also deserves some recognition as he snagged his first stolen base of the season.

Harding dropped their record down to 2-3 with the defeat, which was their tenth straight on the road dating back to last season. As for Highland Park, their win bumped their record up to 3-0.

Everything went Highland Park's way against Harding when the teams last played back in May of 2024, as Highland Park made off with a 13-2 victory. Do the Scots have another victory up their sleeve, or will the Knights turn the tables on them? We'll have the answer soon enough.