Preview: Pine Creek Eagles vs. Valor Christian Eagles
The Pine Creek Eagles are on the road again on Friday and play against the Valor Christian Eagles at 7:00 p.m. on December 15th. Pine Creek has been getting the ball to fall more lately as they've increased their point totals each of their last three games.
Pine Creek scored the most points they've had all season to find success on Saturday. They breezed by Ponderosa on the road to the tune of 66-23. Given Pine Creek's advantage in MaxPreps' Colorado basketball rankings (they are ranked 22nd, while Ponderosa is ranked 177th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Leekaya Burke-perryman and Brooklyn Stewart were among the main playmakers for Pine Creek as the former scored 19 points along with six assists and three steals and the latter scored 18 points along with nine rebounds and four steals. That makes it six consecutive games in which Stewart has scored at least 25% of Pine Creek's points. The team also got some help courtesy of Brenna Hallam, who scored 13 points along with eight rebounds.
Meanwhile, Valor Christian pushed their score all the way to 72 on Tuesday, but even that wasn't enough to win. They fell to Regis Jesuit 78-72. Despite running the score up even higher than they did on Friday (67), Valor Christian still had to take the loss.
The loss doesn't tell the whole story though, as several players had good games. One of the most active was Rylie Beers, who scored 22 points along with six rebounds. That's the first time this season that she scored 15 or more points. Another player making a difference was Quinn Vansickle, who scored 18 points along with eight steals and five rebounds.
Pine Creek's win bumped their record up to 5-1. As for Valor Christian, their defeat ended a ten-game streak of away wins dating back to last season and brought them to 4-2.
Some high-performance offense is likely on the agenda as both teams are some of the highest scoring teams in the league. Pine Creek hasn't had any problem running up the score this season, having only averaged 54.8 points per game. However, it's not like Valor Christian struggles in that department as they've been averaging only 65.2 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.
Pine Creek was taken down by Valor Christian 62-26 in their previous meeting back in January of 2020. The matchup was all but decided by halftime, at which point Pine Creek was down 38-16.
