Ukiah is 1-9 against Cardinal Newman since April of 2019 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Friday. The Ukiah Wildcats will head out on the road to square off against the Cardinal Newman Cardinals at 6:30 p.m. Both teams are coming into the game red-hot, with Ukiah sitting on three straight victories and Cardinal Newman on seven.
If Ukiah beats Cardinal Newman with five runs on Friday, it's going to be the squad's new lucky number: they've won their past two matchups with that exact score. Ukiah walked away with a 5-1 win over Maria Carrillo on Wednesday. That's two games straight that Ukiah has won by exactly four runs.
Kessler Koch was a major factor while hitting and pitching. On the mound, he didn't allow a single earned run and only two hits over five innings pitched. Koch was also big at the plate, going 1-for-3 with a home run and three RBI.
In other batting news, Canyon Loflin was excellent, going 3-for-4 with a triple, a stolen base, and an RBI.
Meanwhile, while Cardinal Newman put up some runs on Wednesday, the same can't be said for Windsor. Cardinal Newman had just enough and edged Windsor out 2-0.
Josh Jannicelli looked comfortable as he pitched an inning while giving up no earned runs off one hit. He has been nothing but reliable on the mound: he hasn't given up more than two walks in four consecutive pitching appearances.
On the hitting side, Cardinal Newman's victory was truly a team effort as four different players contributed at least one hit. One of them was Sam Valenti, who scored a run while going 1-for-3.
Ukiah is on a roll lately: they've won five of their last six contests, which provided a nice bump to their 15-6 record this season. As for Cardinal Newman, their win was their seventh straight at home, which pushed their record up to 20-5.
The batters for both teams will have to hit smart on Friday as both have some strikeout artists on the roster. Ukiah has been retiring batters left and right this season, having averaged 7.4 strikeouts per game. However, it's not like Cardinal Newman struggles in that department as they've been averaging 8.4. Considering how easily both teams rack up Ks, the hitters on both teams better bring their A-game into this one.
Ukiah couldn't quite finish off Cardinal Newman in their previous matchup last Monday and fell 2-0. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Cardinal Newman's Jack Pezzolo, who didn't allow a single earned run over six innings pitched. Now that Ukiah knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
