The Neenah Rockets will look to defend their home field on Tuesday against the Appleton North Lightning at 4:30 p.m. Neenah is coming into the matchup hot, having won their last five games.
Neenah's hitters will try to repeat the strong performance they gave on Saturday, when they got past Menasha's usually-dominant pitching crew. Neenah put the hurt on Menasha with a sharp 11-4 victory.
Meanwhile, Appleton North had to endure a three-game losing streak, but that streak is no more. Their pitcher stepped up to hand Appleton West a 4-0 shutout on Thursday.
The result came thanks to Ethan Wick's shutout, as he gave up just five hits and racked up eight Ks. He has been nothing but reliable on the mound: he hasn't given up more than one earned run in four consecutive pitching appearances.
On the hitting side, the team relied heavily on Brandon Schopf, who scored a run while going 2-for-3. The team also got some help courtesy of Willaim Hoerner, who scored a run while going 1-for-2.
Neenah's win was their fourth straight at home, which pushed their record up to 16-8. As for Appleton North, their victory bumped their record up to 14-5.
Neenah came up short against Appleton North in their previous meeting back in April, falling 8-5. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Wick, who struck out seven batters over five innings while giving up just one earned (and one unearned) run off four hits. Now that Neenah 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
