Cranston West’s 3-1 victory over North Kingstown last Saturday makes today’s Hendricken-Cranston West baseball game a very interesting matchup.

The Falcons and Hawks, who combined have won the last six Division I state championships, will go into the game separated by only a game at the top of the Division I-West standings.

Hendricken, which won four straight state titles from 2002 to 2005, leads the division with a 12-1 record, and West, the two-time defending state champion, is second with an 11-2 mark. Hendricken posted a 5-2 victory the first time the teams met, a month ago.

The game should offer an interesting pitching matchup between Cranston West’s Anthony Meo and Hendricken’s Anthony Ferreira. Meo, the senior All-Stater who led the Falcons to last year’s state title with a 9-0 record and a 0.77 ERA, has been dominant again this season, and Ferreira, Hendricken’s star football quarterback, has been equally impressive in his first season as a varsity pitcher. In his first three starts, all victories, Ferreira allowed a total of only three hits. In his fourth start, last week against Pilgrim, the Patriots managed only two hits in a 4-1 Hendricken victory, in which Ferreira pitched five innings and Rob Curran went two.

Like Ferreira, Meo’s last start also was last Wednesday. He did throw two innings of relief in the Falcons’ victory over North Kingstown on Saturday, but that still gave him only seven innings of work last week because he pitched only five innings in the Falcons’ 12-0 victory over Coventry last Wednesday.

A tough test

Portsmouth star Ryan Westmoreland, who tossed a perfect game against Barrington in his last start, could get one of his toughest pitching tests of the season this afternoon when the Patriots are host to Moses Brown. Portsmouth was unbeaten until yesterday when Lincoln scored six runs in the sixth inning and beat the Patriots, 6-2.

Moses Brown has lost three games this season, but the Quakers have an excellent hitting team, led by the senior trio of Graham Tyler, Sam Sager and Billy Cosmopulos.

Top tennis action

Baseball certainly doesn’t have the spotlight to itself today.

The Hendricken baseball team may be on the road this afternoon, but there still should be plenty of fans at the school’s athletic complex as the Hawks’ tennis team is host to South Kingstown in the second meeting of the season between the top two teams in Rhode Island.

Good lacrosse matchup

It may not be the lacrosse “Game of the Century,”but it definitely will be this season’s top boys matchup Friday night when La Salle visits Hendricken at 6 o’clock.

La Salle leads the Interscholastic League Division I ranks with a 9-0 record. Hendricken is second at 7-1. Hendricken’s only loss was a 10-5 setback to La Salle on April 14.

That victory was believed to be La Salle’s first against Hendricken since the teams starting playing in the Interscholastic League six years ago.

Schmitz honored

Moses Brown lacrosse player Chloe Schmitz has earned projo.com’s HS GameTime Athlete of the Week honor for her five-goal performance in the Quakers’ 12-9 girls victory over North Kingstown last Friday. Schmitz scored four of her goals in the second half as the Quakers handed the Skippers their first loss of the season.

Joe Crook retiring

Rhode Island high school sports will lose a good friend when Joe Crook retires as the City of East Providence’s director of recreation and parks next month.

For decades each fall, Crook and his staff, especially Pierce Field complex manager Joe Medeiros, made sure Pierce Stadium was available for a variety of high school playoff games, and that wasn’t always easy considering New England’s weather in the late fall.

At one time, the Interscholastic League played all four of its football Super Bowls on Pierce’s natural turf field over a three-day period in early December.

jgillool@projo.com