Basketball Game Preview: Mount Airy Granite Bears vs. Starmount Rams

The Mount Airy Granite Bears will head out on the road to face off against the Starmount Rams at 6:30 p.m. on Friday.

Mount Airy is probably headed into the contest with a chip on their shoulder considering North Surry just ended the team's five-game winning streak on Wednesday. They fell 45-36 to the Greyhounds. While losing is never fun, the Granite Bears can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' North Carolina basketball rankings (they are ranked 315th, while the Greyhounds are ranked 67th).

Meanwhile, Starmount earned a 60-48 victory over North Stokes on Tuesday.

Starmount's win came from a few key players Mount Airy will need to keep an eye on. One of the most notable was Molly Swaim, who went 7 of 14 on her way to 26 points and five steals. Starmount is 12-2 when Swaim posts five or more steals, but 1-4 otherwise. The team also got some help courtesy of Carley Money, who went 8 for 16 en route to 20 points along with five boards and three steals.

Starmount is on a roll lately: they've won 12 of their last 13 matches, which provided a nice bump to their 13-6 record this season. Those victories came thanks to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 51.4 points per game. As for Mount Airy, their defeat ended a three-game streak of away wins and brought them to 6-11.

Mount Airy came up short against Starmount in their previous meeting on January 7th, falling 46-36. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Swaim, who went 11 of 19 on her way to 28 points and five steals. Now that Mount Airy knows the damage she can cause, will they be able to stop her this time? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.