The Willow Canyon Wildcats will head out on the road to challenge the Canyon View Jaguars at 5:30 p.m. on Friday. Both teams come into the matchup bolstered by wins in their previous matches.
Willow Canyon is coming in fresh off a high-stakes matchup with another one of Arizona's top teams: Cienega, who was ranked 20th in their home state at the time (Willow Canyon was ranked 22nd). Willow Canyon won by a run and slipped past Cienega 2-1.
Aubrey Kautman spent all seven innings on the mound, and it's clear why: she surrendered only one earned run on four hits. She has been nothing but reliable: she hasn't pitched less than five innings in four consecutive pitching appearances.
On the hitting side, Willow Canyon saw four different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Harmony Andrade, who went 1-for-3 with a triple and a stolen base.
Meanwhile, with a playoff game on the line, Canyon View rose to the challenge on Saturday. They beat the Firebirds by the very same score they won with in their prior game: 17-6. The win was familiar territory for Canyon View who now have 15 in a row.
Willow Canyon is on a roll lately: they've won 17 of their last 19 contests, which provided a nice bump to their 26-9 record this season. As for Canyon View, their victory bumped their record up to 29-3.
Willow Canyon suffered a grim 13-3 defeat to Canyon View in their previous meeting back in March. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Canyon View's Emily Davis, who didn't allow a single earned run while striking out eight over five innings pitched. Now that Willow Canyon knows the damage she can cause, will they be able to stop her this time? There's only one way to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
