Basketball Game Preview: Thornton Trojans vs. Northfield Nighthawks

By Team Reports Feb 19, 2024, 2:41am

Preview: Thornton Trojans vs. Northfield Nighthawks

The Thornton Trojans will be staying on the road on Wednesday to face off against the Northfield Nighthawks at 6:00 p.m. on February 21st. Hopefully Thornton focused on turnovers this week since the team gave up 19 on Wednesday.

Thornton has not done well against Gateway recently (they were 2-7 in their previous nine matchups), but they didn't let the past get in their way. Thornton walked away with a 54-41 victory over Gateway.

It was another big night for Clayton Jones, who dropped a double-double on 25 points and 12 rebounds. That makes it three consecutive games in which he has scored at least a third of Thornton's points. The team also got some help courtesy of Kainoa Miller, who scored eight points along with two steals.

Meanwhile, Northfield had already won 14 in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 33.5 points), and they went ahead and made it 15 on Friday. They were the clear victor by a 72-47 margin over Denver South. Northfield has made a habit of sweeping their opponents off the court, having now won 15 matchups by 25 points or more this season.

Daquan Slayton and Jordan Jefferson were among the main playmakers for Northfield as the former scored ten points along with eight steals and five assists and the latter scored 27 points along with four steals. Slayton is crushing the steal category: he's posted at least two every time he's taken the court this season. Another player making a difference was Justus Michael, who scored 11 points along with two steals.

Thornton is on a roll lately: they've won three of their last four matchups, which provided a nice bump to their 13-10 record this season. As for Northfield, their victory was their eighth straight on the road, which pushed their record up to 21-2.

Some high-performance offense is likely on the agenda as both teams are some of the highest scoring teams in the league. Thornton hasn't had any problem running up the score this season, having averaged 60.1 points per game. However, it's not like Northfield struggles in that department as they've been averaging 79.5 points per game. With both teams so easily able to put up points, the only question left is who can run the score up higher.

Thornton was taken down by Northfield 83-25 in their previous meeting back in December of 2019. That match was all but decided by halftime, at which point Thornton was down 47-15.

Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps