Baseball Game Preview: Athens Warriors vs. Jacksonville Crimsons

Warriors

Runs

04/10/25 vs Maroa-Forsyth	1
04/08/25 @ Auburn	15
04/07/25 vs Illini Bluffs	9
04/01/25 @ Delavan	2
03/29/25 @ Beardstown	10
+ 3 more games

The Athens Warriors will head out to face off against the Jacksonville Crimsons at 4:30 p.m. on Friday. Athens is strutting in with some hitting muscle as they've averaged 6.2 runs per game this season.

Athens is coming in off a wild two-game stretch: after soaring to 15 runs on Tuesday, they were much more limited against Maroa-Forsyth on Thursday. They fell 6-1 to the Trojans. The loss continues a trend for the Warriors in their meetings with the Trojans: they've now lost six in a row.

Athens saw four different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Davis Ishmael, who scored a run while going 1-for-2.

Meanwhile, Jacksonville had already won two in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 5 runs) and they went ahead and made it three on Wednesday. They walked away with a 5-2 win over the Lions. Five seems to be a good number for the Crimsons as the squad scooped up a victory with the same number of runs in their previous game.

The team relied heavily on Joe Reif, who scored two runs and stole two bases while going 3-for-4. Jacksonville is undefeated when Reif posts two or more runs, but 4-6 otherwise.

Jacksonville now has a winning record of 7-6. As for Athens, their defeat was their first in the conference, dropping their conference record down to 3-1 and their overall record down to 5-3.

The batters for both teams will have to hit smart on Friday as both have some strikeout artists on the roster. Athens has been retiring batters left and right this season, having averaged 9 strikeouts per game. However, it's not like Jacksonville struggles in that department as they've been averaging an even more impressive 7.8 strikeouts. Considering how easily both teams rack up Ks, the hitters on both teams better bring their A-game into this one.

Athens suffered a grim 8-0 defeat to Jacksonville when the teams last played back in April of 2024. Can the Warriors avenge their loss or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.