Basketball Game Preview: Mountain Heritage Cougars vs. Mitchell Mountaineers

Mountain Heritage has gone 8-2 against Mitchell recently and they'll look to pad the win column further on Tuesday. The Mountain Heritage Cougars will head out to square off against the Mitchell Mountaineers at 6:30 p.m. Both teams are coming into the game red-hot, with Mountain Heritage sitting on four straight victories and Mitchell on nine.

Last Friday, Mountain Heritage earned a 57-50 win over Avery County.

Layla Worley

Assists (Career)

01/31/25 @ Avery County	6
02/13/24 vs Draughn	5
01/09/25 vs Mitchell	4
01/18/24 vs Madison	4
01/23/24 @ NCSSM: Morganton	4

Multiple players turned in solid performances to lead Mountain Heritage to victory, but perhaps none more so than Layla Worley, who almost dropped a double-double on 13 points and nine boards. The dominant performance also gave Worley a new career-high in assists (six). Lilly Neill was another key player, dropping a double-double on 12 points and 11 rebounds.

Mountain Heritage smashed the offensive glass and finished the game with 14 offensive rebounds. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now pulled down at least ten offensive boards in 17 consecutive matches.

Meanwhile, Mitchell escaped with a win on Saturday against Cloudland by the margin of a single free throw, 46-45.

Mitchell pushed their record up to 13-5 with the victory, which was their fifth straight on the road. Those victories came thanks to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 55.0 points per game. As for Mountain Heritage, they have been performing incredibly well recently as they've won 11 of their last 12 contests, which provided a nice bump to their 16-3 record this season.

Mountain Heritage took their win against Mitchell when the teams last played back in January by a conclusive 58-35. The rematch might be a little tougher for Mountain Heritage since the team won't have the home-court advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.