Two of the Fox Valley Conference’s most successful baseball players met over the holiday weekend when the Louisville Bats hosted the Indianapolis Indians in a Triple-A game Saturday in Louisville, Kentucky.

Indianapolis pitcher and 2019 Cary-Grove graduate Quinn Priester struck out Louisville left fielder Nick Martini, a 2008 Prairie Ridge grad, to lead off the bottom of the first inning, but Martini provided fireworks with a three-run home run with two outs in the second.

The left-handed Martini sent a high fly ball over the right-field wall on a 0-1 pitch to give Louisville a 4-0 lead.

Priester retired Martini on a groundout in their final meeting in the fifth.

Martini added another three-run home run in the eighth inning and was 2 for 5 with six RBIs. Priester gave up four runs on five hits in five innings, striking out five and walking three.

Indianapolis went on to score 12 runs in the final three innings and won 14-8.

Priester, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ first-round pick of the 2019 MLB First-Year Player Draft, started the season in Indianapolis and is 7-3 with a 4.54 ERA, 1.42 WHIP and 81 strikeouts over 79 1/3 innings. Martini, a seventh-round pick by the St. Louis Cardinals in 2011, is hitting .258 with eight home runs and 37 RBIs in 213 at-bats.

Priester, who is ranked as the 55th best prospect by MLB Pipeline, is a hopeful call-up by the Pirates as soon as this season.

Martini, now in the Cincinnati Reds organization, previously spent time with the Oakland Athletics, San Diego Padres and Cubs, having made major-league appearances with all three teams. He made his big-league debut in 2018 and owns a career .270 batting average, .369 on-base percentage, along with two home runs, 38 runs scored and 30 RBIs in 112 games.