Basketball Game Preview: Sumner Spartans vs. Spanaway Lake Sentinels

The Sumner Spartans will venture away from home to take on the Spanaway Lake Sentinels at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday. Sumner knows how to get points on the board -- the squad has finished with 55 points or more in their past eight matchups -- so hopefully Spanaway Lake likes a good challenge.

Sumner is headed in fresh off scoring the most points they have all season. They really took it to Bonney Lake for the full four quarters, racking up an 86-48 victory. With the Spartans ahead 51-21 at the half, the contest was all but over already.

Meanwhile, Spanaway Lake was not able to break out of their rough patch on Tuesday as the team picked up their fourth straight loss. They were five points away from ending the streak, but they lost a 64-59 heartbreaker at the hands of Rogers. While losing is never fun, the Sentinels can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' Washington basketball rankings (they are ranked 258th, while the Rams are ranked 114th).

Sumner will need focus on slowing down Darius Alexander, one of several Spanaway Lake players who made an impact when they last played. He almost dropped a double-double on 13 points and nine boards. The dominant performance gave Alexander a new career-high in rebounds. Jabari Preston was another key player, putting up 16 points and seven rebounds.

Sumner has been performing incredibly well recently as they've won six of their last seven games, which provided a nice bump to their 8-4 record this season. The wins came thanks to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 66.9 points per game. As for Spanaway Lake, their defeat dropped their record down to 4-6.