Basketball Game Preview: Mineral Ridge Rams vs. Memorial Red Devils

The Mineral Ridge Rams will face off against the Memorial Red Devils at 7:00 p.m. on Monday. Both squads will be entering this one on the heels of a big victory.

Mineral Ridge will bounce into Monday's match after beating Champion, who they had gone 0-5 against in their five prior meetings. Couldn't have asked for a better way to wrap up 2024 than the 56-29 stomp they got against Champion. While the Rams didn't have the best season last year (they finished 6-17), it's starting to look like those struggles are a thing of the past.

Multiple players turned in solid performances to lead Mineral Ridge to victory, but perhaps none more so than Jordon Moore, who posted ten points and six rebounds. Kaden Shaffer was another key player, going 5 of 11 on his way to 12 points.

Meanwhile, Memorial was fully in charge on Friday, breezing past Struthers 83-50. Given the Red Devils' advantage in MaxPreps' Ohio basketball rankings (they are ranked 315th, while the Wildcats are ranked 647th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.

Memorial has been performing well recently as they've won five of their last six contests, which provided a nice bump to their 8-2 record this season. The wins came thanks to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 78.0 points per game. As for Mineral Ridge, their win bumped their record up to 5-2.

Mineral Ridge didn't have too much breathing room in their game against Memorial in their previous matchup back in February of 2019, but they still walked away with a 77-71 victory. Will Mineral Ridge repeat their success, or does Memorial have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.