Basketball Game Preview: Berkley Bears vs. Avondale Yellowjackets

The Berkley Bears will take on the Avondale Yellowjackets at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Both squads will be entering this one on the heels of a big victory.

On Friday, Berkley really took it to Voyageur Academy for the full four quarters, racking up a 55-16 win. The team ran away with 44 points in the first half and mostly just sat on those to pick up the victory.

Meanwhile, there's no place like home for Avondale, who bounced back after a loss on the road on Tuesday. They blew past North Farmington, posting a 63-21 win. Given the Yellowjackets' advantage in MaxPreps' Michigan basketball rankings (they are ranked 94th, while the Raiders are ranked 530th), the result on Thursday wasn't entirely unexpected.

Avondale's win came from a few key players Berkley will need to keep an eye on. One of the most notable was Morgan Mcpherson, who went 8 for 16 to rack up 23 points along with six steals and five rebounds. The dominant performance also gave her a new career-high in three-point shooting accuracy (63%). Sasha McClellan was another key player, putting up eight points in addition to ten boards and eight assists.

Avondale smashed the offensive glass and finished the game with 21 offensive rebounds. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now pulled down at least ten offensive boards in ten consecutive contests.

The victory made it two in a row for Berkley and bumps their season record up to 12-6. The wins came thanks in part to their defensive effort, having only surrendered 26.5 points over those games. As for Avondale, they have been performing well recently as they've won ten of their last 12 games, which provided a nice bump to their 13-3 record this season.

Berkley came up short against Avondale in their previous matchup back in January, falling 61-55. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Avondale's Amaria Daniel, who almost dropped a double-double on 26 points and nine rebounds. Now that Berkley knows the damage she can cause, will they be able to stop her this time? There's only one way to find out.