It is the series Pike Liberal Arts players have been looking forward to ever since Glenwood defeated them in the Alabama Independent School Association state championship series a year ago.

“We’re ready to play them,” third baseman Josh Starling said. “It’s always going to be a good game when you play a team like Glenwood.”

Pike has beaten Glenwood all three times the teams have played this season, including a no-hit, 6-0 victory in the season opener at Riddle-Pace Field.

“They’re going to be tough,” head coach Butch Austin said. “They are always tough. It doesn’t matter what happened during the season, Glenwood is coming down here to win. We’re going to have to play our best to beat them twice.”

The Patriots open the best-of-three series at 4p.m. at Butch Austin Field with a sense of confident past Pike teams may have lacked against the Gators.

“We’ve beaten them three times this year so we feel good about ourselves coming in,” catcher Blake Floyd said. “Glenwood is a really good team but we’ve played against these guys for three years now so we have a good idea of what to do.”

Aside for last year’s collapse where Pike took game one in the championship series then lost the next two, the Patriots were also swept at Patterson Field in 2010.

“We want to beat them,” Starling said. “We feel like we let it slip away last year.”

The Patriots enter the game ranked second in the AISA with a 27-5 mark while Glenwood is 31-10 and ranked third.