Preview: Hillside Hornets vs. Chapel Hill Tigers
Hillside is 8-2 against Chapel Hill since January of 2018, and they'll have a chance to extend that success on Friday. The Hillside Hornets will head out on the road to square off against the Chapel Hill Tigers at 5:30 p.m. Both squads will be entering this one on the heels of a big victory.
Winning is just a little bit easier when you work as a team to rack up nine more assists than your opponent, a fact Hillside proved on Wednesday. They blew past Jordan 62-24 at home. Given Hillside's advantage in MaxPreps' North Carolina basketball rankings (they are ranked 84th, while Jordan is ranked 221st), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
It was another big night for Samiyah Barker, who scored 21 points. That makes it four consecutive games in which she has scored at least a third of Hillside's points. Madison Malone was another key contributor, dropping a double-double on ten points and ten rebounds.
Meanwhile, Chapel Hill had already won 12 in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 34.1 points), and they went ahead and made it 13 on Wednesday. They claimed a resounding 62-25 win over East Chapel Hill at home. Chapel Hill pushed the score to 58-13 by the end of the third, a deficit East Chapel Hill cut but never quite recovered from.
Multiple players turned in solid performances to lead Chapel Hill to victory, but perhaps none more so than Ashton Beale, who scored 14 points along with two steals. Beale hasn't dropped below two steals for five straight games. The team also got some help courtesy of Scarlett Gilner, who scored ten points along with four steals.
Hillside has been performing incredibly well recently as they've won 13 of their last 15 matchups, which provided a nice bump to their 18-7 record this season. As for Chapel Hill, their win was their 12th straight at home dating back to last season, which pushed their record up to 21-4.
This contest is one where the number of possessions is likely to be a big factor: Hillside have been smashing the glass this season, having averaged 32.2 rebounds per game. However, it's not like Chapel Hill struggles in that department as they've been averaging 36.4 rebounds per game. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
Hillside was dealt a bruising 78-46 loss at the hands of Chapel Hill in their previous matchup last Tuesday. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Chapel Hill's Laynie Smith, who dropped a double-double on 23 points and 11 rebounds. Now that Hillside knows the damage she can cause, will they be able to stop her this time? There's only one way to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
