The Illinois Valley Central Grey Ghosts will square off against the Mendota Trojans at 4:30 p.m. on Friday. The teams are on pretty different trajectories at the moment (Illinois Valley Central has seven straight wins, Mendota has three straight defeats), but none of that matters once you're on the field.
Illinois Valley Central proved they can win big on Tuesday (they won by seven) and on Thursday they proved they can win the close ones too. They had just enough and edged out Metamora 8-7.
Keegan Schol
| 05/15/25 @ Metamora | 4 |
| 04/10/25 @ Peoria Notre Dame | 3 |
| 03/26/25 @ Streator | 3 |
| 03/21/25 vs Pekin | 3 |
| 05/03/25 vs Rantoul | 2 |
Keegan Schol was a major factor while hitting and pitching. He looked comfortable on the mound, striking out seven batters over three innings while giving up no earned runs off one hit (and not a single walk). Schol was also big at the plate, going 2-for-4 with four RBI and one double. Those four RBI gave him a new career-high.
In other batting news, Grant Bramer was a standout: he got on base in all four of his plate appearances with two RBI and one run. Those two RBI gave him a new career-high. The team also got some help courtesy of Gabe Perez, who went 3-for-5 with two runs.
Illinois Valley Central kept the outfield on their toes and finished the game with 11 hits. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now got at least eight hits in three consecutive matchups.
Sandwich hit Mendota with a four-run seventh inning on Tuesday, which goes a long way in explaining the final result. The Trojans came up short against the Indians, falling 10-4.
Illinois Valley Central pushed their record up to 20-10 with the victory, which was their fourth straight on the road. The road wins came thanks in part to their hitting performance across that stretch, as they averaged 9.0 runs over those games. As for Mendota, their loss dropped their record down to 8-16-1.
Illinois Valley Central took their victory against Mendota in their previous meeting back in March of 2019 by a conclusive 12-2 score. Will the Grey Ghosts repeat their success, or do the Trojans have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
