The Washington Demons will renew their longest-running rivalry on the baseball diamond tonight when they take on the Mount Pleasant Panthers in a game you can hear on KCII.

After winning their season opener and looking to shake off the struggle of only five total wins a season ago, Washington has lost four straight games, including both in their doubleheader against Burlington on Monday to open Southeast Conference play.

But one upside of Monday is that the Demons got back junior infielder Kael Williams, who missed the first week of the season due to injury and is the team’s leading returning hitter after posting a .320 batting average and a team-high 24 runs scored in 2024.

New faces have started to step up for Washington’s lineup, like sophomore Boden Brown and freshman Mitchell Zieglowsky, who have combined for 9 total hits and a .346 average through five games. Demons head coach TJ Rausch tells KCII Sports that his youthful bunch has shown a lot of upside to begin this summer.

“We’re already light-years ahead of where we were when started [last] Tuesday,” Rausch says. “Those young guys that are waiting for an opportunity, and then they’re taking advantage of it, they’re bought in. They’re just waiting for their chance to do it.”

Washington is facing a Mount Pleasant team that went 22-9 last year but has dropped five of its first seven games this season.

Zachary Newton still brings plenty of punch at the plate for the Panthers, batting .333 with three doubles and seven runs batted in, as does fellow senior JC Sitar, with his .474 average, the team’s lone home run and seven runs scored.

After a long stretch of success against Mount Pleasant, the Demons have dropped four straight in the series. You can hear Washington baseball battle the rival Panthers this evening on 106.1 FM and streaming on KCIIradio.com and the KCII1 app, starting with the Countdown to First Pitch at 7 o’clock.