Preview: St. Mary's Knights vs. Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton Bulldogs
The St. Mary's Knights will finish 2023 at home by hosting the Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton Bulldogs at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. Keep an eye on the score for this one: the pair posted some lofty point totals in their previous games.
Last Friday, everything went St. Mary's way against Cedar Mountain as St. Mary's made off with a 80-57 win. Given St. Mary's advantage in MaxPreps' Minnesota basketball rankings (they are ranked 34th, while Cedar Mountain is ranked 146th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Will Walter continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines, scoring 31 points along with five assists and five rebounds. That makes it seven consecutive games in which he has scored at least 25% of St. Mary's points. Brandon Schmitz was another key contributor, scoring 12 points along with six rebounds.
Meanwhile, things could have been worse for Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton, but they could have been a whole lot better as they took a 73-59 loss to Waseca on Friday. Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton has not had much luck with Waseca recently, as the team's come up short the last five times they've met.
St. Mary's pushed their record up to 6-1 with that victory, which was their fifth straight at home dating back to last season. Those good results were due in large part to their offensive dominance across that stretch, as they averaged 83.4 points per game. As for Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton, their defeat dropped their record down to 5-3.
