The St. Michael-Albertville Knights will face off against the Minnetonka Skippers at 4:30 p.m. on Friday. The two teams have allowed few runs on average (St. Michael-Albertville 3.3, Minnetonka 3.2) so any runs scored will be well earned.
St. Michael-Albertville is coming in off a wild two-game stretch: after soaring to 11 runs on Monday, they were much more limited against Edina on Wednesday. They fell just short of the Hornets by a score of 2-1. The game marked the Knights' lowest-scoring matchup so far this season.
Ryley Wuebkers was a force to be reckoned with on the mound despite the final result: he tossed six innings while giving up just one earned (and one unearned) run off two hits.
On the hitting side, St. Michael-Albertville saw four different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was CJ Splettstoesser, who went 1-for-3 with one double and one RBI.
Meanwhile, winning is always nice, but doing so behind a season-high score is even better (just ask Minnetonka). They never let Buffalo get on the board and left with a 10-0 victory on Wednesday. The win continues a trend for the Skippers in their matchups with the Bison: they've now won eight in a row.
Not much got past Jack Butterworth, who gave up just four hits and racked up 12 Ks to keep Buffalo off the board. Those 12 strikeouts set a new season-high mark for Butterworth.
At the plate, Minnetonka got a massive performance out of Garrett Wheeler, who went a perfect 3-for-3 with three runs, one stolen base, and one double. That's the most hits Wheeler has posted since back in April. The team also got some help courtesy of Brody Vogstrom, who went 2-for-4 with one home run and two RBI.
Minnetonka's victory was their fifth straight at home, which pushed their record up to 10-3. They've had to fight for that success though, as they only beat their opponents by an average of 3.2 runs across that stretch. As for St. Michael-Albertville, their loss ended a six-game streak of away wins dating back to last season and brought them to 8-2.
St. Michael-Albertville skirted past Minnetonka 4-3 in their previous meeting back in April. Do the Knights have another victory up their sleeve, or will the Skippers turn the tables on them? We'll have the answer soon enough.
