Basketball Game Preview: North Sanpete Hawks vs. Richfield Wildcats

North Sanpete is 2-8 against Richfield since January of 2018 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Friday. After both having extra time off, both will shake off the cobwebs and challenge one another at 7:00 p.m. North Sanpete is strutting in with some offensive muscle as they've averaged 51 points per game this season.

North Sanpete took a loss when they played away from home two weeks ago, but their home fans gave them all the motivation they needed last Friday. In a tight matchup that could have gone either way, they made off with a 46-45 victory over Delta. The win was some much needed relief for the Hawks as it spelled an end to their three-game losing streak.

Ridge Hendry continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines, going 9 of 20 on his way to 26 points and six rebounds. That makes it five consecutive games in which he has scored at least a third of North Sanpete's points. The team also got some help courtesy of Bryce Swapp, who posted six points.

Meanwhile, Richfield had already won two in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 15 points) and they went ahead and made it three last Friday. They blew past the Dinos 75-53. The contest was pretty much decided by the half, when the score had already reached 41-21.

Richfield is on a roll lately: they've won five of their last six games, which provided a nice bump to their 8-3 record this season. Those victories came thanks to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 61.7 points per game. As for North Sanpete, their victory was their first in the region, bumping their region record up to 1-2 and their overall record up to 2-6.

North Sanpete was dealt a bruising 62-31 defeat at the hands of Richfield in their previous matchup back in February. Can North Sanpete avenge their loss or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.