Basketball Game Preview: North Mecklenburg Vikings vs. Lake Norman Wildcats

The North Mecklenburg Vikings will square off against the Lake Norman Wildcats at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Keep an eye on the score for this one: the two teams posted some lofty point totals in their previous games.

North Mecklenburg is on a roll after a high-stakes playoff matchup on Friday. They took down Butler 69-54. Given the Vikings' advantage in MaxPreps' North Carolina basketball rankings (they are ranked ninth, while the Bulldogs are ranked 52nd), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.

Meanwhile, Lake Norman had already won 17 in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 44.9 points) and they went ahead and made it 18 on Friday. They took their match with ease, bagging an 87-41 win over the Vikings. The Wildcats pushed the score to 70-34 by the end of the third, a deficit the Vikings had no chance of recovering from.

North Mecklenburg pushed their record up to 25-3 with the victory, which was their 12th straight on the road. Those victories came thanks in part to their defensive effort, having only surrendered 28.1 points on average over those games. As for Lake Norman, their win bumped their record up to 26-1.

North Mecklenburg came up short against Lake Norman when the teams last played back in February of 2023, falling 57-50. Can North Mecklenburg avenge their loss or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.