Baseball Game Preview: Southern Trojans vs. Butler Bears

vs

Previous Games

03/22/25 - Neutral	7-6 W
03/14/25 - Away	10-4 W
03/23/24 - Home	9-5 W
04/15/23 - Away	5-6 L
03/26/22 - Away	2-12 L
+ 5 more games

Southern and Butler are an even 5-5 against one another since March of 2016, but likely not for long. The Trojans will look to defend their home field on Thursday against the Bears at 5:30 p.m. Southern is coming into the matchup hot, having won their last five games.

Southern's pitching crew heads into the game hoping to repeat the dominance they displayed on Tuesday. They came out on top against North Bullitt by a score of 4-0.

Richard Hernandez made a splash while hitting and pitching. He didn't allow a single earned run while striking out seven over six innings pitched. He has been nothing but reliable on the mound: he hasn't given up a single earned run in five consecutive appearances. He was also big at the plate, going 2-for-3 with one double. That double marked the first that he has hit this season.

Hernandez wasn't the only one making solid contact as five players wound up with at least one hit. One of them was JuJu Bates, who went a perfect 2-for-2 with one RBI. That's the most hits Bates has posted since back in March.

Meanwhile, winning is always nice, but doing so behind a season-high score is even better (just ask Butler). Everything went their way against Iroquois on Tuesday as they made off with an 18-1 win. The victory continues a trend for the Bears in their matchups with the Raiders: they've now won six in a row.

Southern pushed their record up to 15-7 with the win, which was their third straight at home. The home victories came thanks in part to their pitching effort, having only surrendered 0.7 runs on average over those games. As for Butler, their win bumped their record up to 10-11.

Southern came out on top in a nail-biter against Butler when the teams last played back in March, sneaking past 7-6. Do the Trojans have another victory up their sleeve, or will the Bears turn the tables on them? We'll have the answer soon enough.