Preview: Apollo Hawks vs. Ironwood Eagles
Apollo has been on the road for four straight, but on Thursday they'll finally head home. They will be home for the holidays to greet the Ironwood Eagles at 7:00 p.m. Expect the scorekeeper to be kept busy: if their previous games are any indication, the pair will really light up the scoreboard.
Last Monday, everything came up roses for Apollo on the road against Kellis as the team secured a 76-47 victory. Given Apollo's advantage in MaxPreps' Arizona basketball rankings (they are ranked 72nd, while Kellis is ranked 217th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Apollo's win was the result of several impressive offensive performances. One of the most notable came from Elijah White, who scored 18 points. The team also got some help courtesy of DeQuean Bryant, who scored 14 points.
Meanwhile, Ironwood waltzed into their matchup Tuesday with three straight wins but they left with four. They walked away with a 62-54 win over Casteel.
Noah Gifft continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines, going 7 for 11 from beyond the arc en route to 30 points and 0 assists. That makes it five consecutive games in which he has scored at least 25% of Ironwood's points. Another player making a difference was Jadden Jones, who scored eight points along with seven rebounds and five assists.
Apollo is on a roll lately: they've won six of their last seven games, which provided a nice bump to their 9-2 record this season. As for Ironwood, their victory bumped their record up to an identical 9-2.
Some high-performance offense is likely on the agenda as the pair are some of the highest scoring teams in the league. Apollo hasn't had any problem running up the score this season, having only averaged 63.1 points per game. However, it's not like Ironwood struggles in that department as they've been averaging 77.5 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.
Apollo suffered a grim 89-67 defeat to Ironwood in their previous meeting back in February. Will Apollo have more luck at home instead of on the road? Come back here after the game to get analysis of the match and other basketball content.
