Preview: Pleasant Spartans vs. River Valley Vikings
Pleasant is 1-9 against River Valley since February of 2019 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Saturday. The Pleasant Spartans the luxury of staying home another game and will welcome the River Valley Vikings at 7:15 p.m. on January 20th. Pleasant will have to bring their A-game into this one, as they are staring down a pretty big deficit in the MaxPreps Ohio Rankings (they are ranked 343rd, while River Valley is ranked 85th).
Last Friday, Pleasant came up short against Shelby and fell 57-50. That's two games in a row now that Pleasant has lost by exactly seven points.
Defeat or not, Pleasant got some senior leadership from Wiley Smith and Trey Booker. Smith scored 15 points along with three steals, while Booker. scored 21 points along with six rebounds. That was a full 42% of Pleasant's points, marking the seventh time in a row he's earned more than a third of the team's points.
Meanwhile, River Valley waltzed into their contest on Thursday with five straight wins but they left with six. They were the clear victor by a 82-58 margin over Ontario. River Valley has made a habit of sweeping their opponents off the court, having now won four contests by 24 points or more this season.
River Valley's win was the result of several impressive offensive performances. One of the most notable came from Carson Smith, who scored 25 points along with seven rebounds and three steals. Smith has been hot recently, having posted 15 or more points the last six times he's played. Another player making a difference was Ayden Kenney, who scored 16 points along with nine rebounds and two steals.
Pleasant bumped their record down to 6-7 with that defeat, which was their fifth straight at home. As for River Valley, they are on a roll lately: they've won seven of their last eight matchups, which provided a nice bump to their 10-3 record this season.
Saturday's contest is shaping up to be a scrappy match: Pleasant have been smashing the glass this season, having only averaged 20.5 rebounds per game. However, it's not like River Valley struggles in that department as they've been averaging only 30.1 rebounds per game. Given Pleasant's sizeable advantage in that area, River Valley will need to find a way to close that gap.
Pleasant came up short against River Valley in their previous matchup back in December of 2023, falling 61-52. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Smith, who scored 27 points along with eight rebounds and four steals. Now that Pleasant knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.
