Preview: Paxton Tigers vs. St. Patrick's Irish
The Paxton Tigers will head out on the road to challenge the St. Patrick's Irish at 7:15 p.m. on Friday. Hopefully Paxton focused on turnovers this week since the team gave up 11 on Thursday.
Last Thursday, Paxton earned a 44-33 victory over Sutherland.
Josh Eakins was his usual excellent self, scoring 23 points along with seven steals and five rebounds. Another player making a difference was Maddex McConnell, who scored 11 points along with four blocks.
Meanwhile, St. Patrick's had already won four in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 14 points), and they went ahead and made it five on Thursday. They came out on top against Hershey by a score of 43-30. Given St. Patrick's advantage in MaxPreps' Nebraska basketball rankings (they are ranked 21st, while Hershey is ranked 133rd), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Paxton pushed their record up to 13-8 with that win, which was their ninth straight at home. Those good results were due in large part to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 57.1 points per game. As for St. Patrick's, they have been performing incredibly well recently as they've won 12 of their last 13 matches, which provided a nice bump to their 17-3 record this season.
Paxton came up short against St. Patrick's in their previous meeting back in February of 2023, falling 53-40. Can Paxton avenge their defeat or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.
