Basketball Game Preview: Hilltop Cadets vs. Montpelier Locomotives

The Hilltop Cadets will square off against the Montpelier Locomotives at 7:15 p.m. on Thursday. Both teams are coming into the contest red-hot, with Hilltop sitting on 16 straight victories and Montpelier on three.

On Thursday, Hilltop needed a bit of extra time to put away Edon. They snuck past the Bombers with a 52-46 win. Given the Cadets' advantage in MaxPreps' Ohio basketball rankings (they are ranked 135th, while the Bombers are ranked 689th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.

Meanwhile, Montpelier beat Stryker 35-28 on Thursday.

Montpelier has also been performing well recently as they've won four of their last five matchups, which provided a nice bump to their 10-4 record this season. The wins came thanks to their defensive effort, having only surrendered 29.2 points per game. As for Hilltop, they pushed their record up to 16-0 with the victory, which was their 19th straight on the road dating back to last season.

Hilltop didn't have too much breathing room in their game against Montpelier in their previous meeting on January 6th, but they still walked away with a 44-40 win. Does Hilltop have another victory up their sleeve, or will Montpelier turn the tables on them? We'll have the answer soon enough.