The Olympic Heights Lions will be playing at home against the Leonard Lancers at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday.
On Tuesday, it was a hard-fought matchup, but Olympic Heights had to settle for a 5-4 defeat against Royal Palm Beach.
Finley Lamb was a force to be reckoned with on the mound despite the final result: he struck out six batters over 4.2 innings while giving up just two earned runs off two hits.
At the plate, Olympic Heights saw five different players step up and record at least one hit. One of them was Jace Schlacter, who went 1-for-2 with two RBI. The team also got some help courtesy of Dylan Salazar, who scored a run while going 1-for-3.
Meanwhile, Leonard narrowly escaped with a win as the team sidled past Lake Worth Christian 10-8. The victory made it back-to-back wins for Leonard.
Shawn Lopez made a big impact no matter where he played. He tossed five innings while giving up just two earned (and three unearned) runs off five hits. Lopez was also solid in the batter's box, going 1-for-4 with a triple, a run, and an RBI.
In other batting news, Leonard got a massive performance out of Jariel Rodriguez, who scored two runs and stole three bases while going 1-for-3. Another player making a difference was Victor Garcia-Gosling, who went 2-for-4 with a triple, a stolen base, and two RBI.
Olympic Heights' loss dropped their record down to 6-14. As for Leonard, they have been performing well recently as they've won six of their last eight matches, which provided a nice bump to their 10-7 record this season.
The batters for both teams will have to hit smart on Thursday as both have some strikeout artists on the roster. Olympic Heights has been retiring batters left and right this season, having averaged 7.6 strikeouts per game. However, it's not like Leonard struggles in that department as they've been averaging 7.4. Considering how easily both teams rack up Ks, the hitters on both teams better bring their A-game into this one.
Olympic Heights might still be hurting after the 11-4 defeat they got from Leonard in their previous meeting back in March. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Leonard's Steven Montes de Oca Napoles, who scored two runs and stole four bases while going 3-for-4. Now that Olympic Heights 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