Pine Forest and Navarre are an even 4-4 against one another since February of 2016, but likely not for long. The Pine Forest Eagles will be staying on the road on Friday to face off against the Navarre Raiders at 6:00 p.m. Neither Pine Forest nor Navarre posted many runs in their last games, so it might be the pitching crews that decide this one.
On Wednesday, Pine Forest didn't have quite enough to beat Booker T. Washington and fell 2-1.
Pine Forest saw five different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Xavier Taylor, who went 2-for-3 with an RBI.
Meanwhile, Navarre was not able to break out of their rough patch on Tuesday as the team picked up their sixth straight loss. Their rough 8-0 defeat to Pace might stick with them for a while.
Even though they lost, Navarre didn't let batters stay on the plate for long and finished the game with five strikeouts. This was only their 11th loss (out of 16 games) when they post five or more strikeouts.
Pine Forest has not been sharp recently as the team has lost ten of their last 11 matchups, which put a noticeable dent in their 5-16 record this season. As for Navarre, their record now sits at 6-14.
The batters for both teams will have to hit smart on Friday as both have some strikeout artists on the roster. Pine Forest has been retiring batters left and right this season, having averaged 7 strikeouts per game. However, it's not like Navarre struggles in that department as they've been averaging 6.8. Considering how easily both teams rack up Ks, the hitters on both teams better bring their A-game into this one.
Pine Forest came up short against Navarre when the teams last played back in February, falling 13-8. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Navarre's Cole Crocker, who didn't allow a single earned run and only two hits over four innings pitched. Now that Pine Forest knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
