The Hillcrest Academy Raven baseball team is back on the diamond tonight when they take on North Cedar in the second round of the 1A district tournament. The Ravens flew through the first round on Friday, pounding the English Valleys Bears 10-0 in five innings behind a complete game shut out, 11 strikeout performance from senior Eli Ours on the mound and a three for three night with two doubles, a home run and four RBI for Jace Rempel. Hillcrest comes into the night with a 13-9 record. They were 9-7 in the Southeast Iowa Superconference, finishing fourth in the North Division. The Ravens are hitting .302 as a team with a staff ERA of 3.29. Individually, the Ravens are led by three Ravens hitting .400 or better with London Schrock at .431, Luke Schrock at .427 and Jace Rempel at .400. London Schrock has the team lead with 34 RBI. Luke Schrock leads the Ravens with 32 total hits. On the mound, Noah Miller, Seth Ours and Liam Schrock are all undefeated on the year, Seth Ours has a 0.70 ERA. Eli Ours leads the team with three wins and 39 innings pitched with a 3.41ERA.

North Cedar is 2-19 on the season, collecting their second win of the campaign by upseting Highland in the opening round of the playoffs Monday in Riverside 4-1. The Knights were 1-17 in the River Valley Conference, finishing at the bottom of the North Division. The victory over the Huskies snapped an 18 game losing streak for the Knights. On the year, they are hitting .216 as a team with a 9.23 staff ERA. Individually, the Knights are led by Tadan Lange hitting .400 with 20 total hits, 13 RBI and nine runs scored. Lange is also the leader on the mound with a team high 35 innings thrown, 1-7 record and 8.64ERA. Monday night in Riverside, Hillcrest head coach Danny Hershberger talked about the keys to his team continuing to advance. “The biggest thing for us is to continue to put together complete games. Tonight felt like we did a good job pitching, playing defense and hitting in the same game. If we can continue to put all of those phases of the game together , we’re going to give ourselves a really good shot.”

The winner of this game will meet the winner of Lone Tree and Lisbon Saturday in Lisbon. You can hear all of the action between the Ravens and the Knights tonight on AM 1380, FM 102.5 and KCIIradio.com, beginning with the Washington HyVee pregame show at 6:30 and first pitch at 7p.m.