The Hillcrest Academy Raven baseball and softball teams entertain the Pekin Panthers in Kalona Tuesday as part of a boy-girl Southeast Iowa Superconference doubleheader. The Raven girls are 1-1 on the year after a 10-1 win over Danville and a 12-2 loss to L-M in their opening week. Hillcrest is hitting .280 as a team with 14 total hits, 12 runs scored, 11 driven in, nine walks and 16 strikeouts. They are led individually by Kylee Statler with a .571 average, four hits, all singles and five RBI. She, Malia Yoder, Delaney Shaw and Stavia Miller have all scored twice. In the circle, Yoder is 1-1 and has worked 11 and two thirds innings with a 3.60ERA, and a .167 opponent batting average against, giving up 10 hits, 13 runs, six earned, walking eight and striking out 19. Pekin is 0-3 after losses to Highland 14-1, Holy Trinity Catholic 10-0 and an insane 28-27 loss to Winfield-Mt. Union in their opening week. The Panthers are .291 at the plate collectively, led by Myah Bainbridge, Quinnlyn Baker and Anna Hadley all at .444. Addison Smith leads the pitching staff with four and two thirds innings, a .419 opponent batting average against, 13 hits, 10 runs, five earned, two walks, two strikeouts and a 7.50 ERA with an 0-1 record. Following the Hillcrest victory over Danville to open the season, Raven head coach Kent Blossom joined KCII sports to talk about his standouts, he said, “I told the girls afterward, our plate presence was really good tonight. We didn’t go chasing out of the strike zone. Delaney Shaw was hitting the ball hard. Malia Yoder was crushing the ball. Kylee Statler hitting cleanup got good opportunities and a couple of hits with RBI. (Pitching) coming in we were having the approach of trying to hit the corners and Malia was really working the zone pretty well. Her rise ball was certainly doing it’s job getting out of the zone late. The screw ball was doing the same thing. She did really well.”
The Panthers have won 21 of the last 24 in the series, including nine straight, beating the Ravens 4-1 and 13-12 in 2022.
The Raven baseball team will put their unbeaten mark on the line against the Panthers in Kalona tonight. Hillcrest is 2-0 on the season after a pair of first week mercy-rule wins, taking down Danville 18-0 on opening night and L-M 17-3 on Friday in Letts. Hillcrest is hitting a red-hot .385 to start the year with Luke Schrock at .625, including a team best five hits. Schrock and Rowan Miller are tied with six RBI to lead the way, Seth Ours has scored six runs. Ours and Phoenix Anderson have pitching wins for a staff that has a combined 0.70ERA, WHIP of one even, and opponent batting average of just .194 through 10 innings of work. Pekin is 1-4 with losses to Highland, Fairfield, Moravia and Davis County. Their lone victory a 6-3 decision over Winfield-Mt. Union. Their loss to the Huskies was 12-2 Friday. The Panthers are hitting .213 as a team with Ben Ehret and Deklan Hampton both at .333. Ehret has a team best five RBI, four hits and four runs scored. On the mound, Pekin has a team ERA of 7.18 with Sven Dahlstrom 1-0 in four innings with a 5.25. These two teams have split their last 26 matchups with the Ravens sweeping the series last year 5-4 and 15-11. You can hear all of the softball action live tonight between the Ravens and the Panthers on AM 1380, FM 102.5 and KCIIradio.com, beginning with the Jessica Yoder and Sarah Bigley with Lepic Kroeger Realtors pregame show at 6:30 and first pitch at 7p.m.