Preview: Ontario Warriors vs. River Valley Vikings
Ontario and River Valley are an even 5-5 against one another since February of 2019, but not for long. The two teams will face off at 7:15 p.m. on January 18th without much rest after finishing up games yesterday. Expect the scorekeeper to be kept busy: if their previous games are any indication, the pair will really light up the scoreboard on Thursday.
Last Saturday, Ontario came up short against Ashland and fell 77-70. Ontario has not had much luck with Ashland recently, as the team's come up short the last three times they've met.
Meanwhile, River Valley had already won four in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 22.8 points), and they went ahead and made it five on Saturday. They sure made it a nail-biter, but they managed to escape with a 65-63 victory over Bishop Ready. For those keeping track at home, that's the closest victory River Valley has posted yet this season.
River Valley's victory was a true team effort, with many players turning in solid performances. Perhaps the best among them was Ayden Kenney, who scored 20 points along with seven rebounds. Carson Smith was another key contributor, scoring 21 points along with five rebounds.
Ontario bumped their record down to 3-9 with that loss, which was their fourth straight on the road. Those losses can't be blamed on the team's offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 65.5 points per game. As for River Valley, they are on a roll lately: they've won six of their last seven games, which provided a nice bump to their 9-3 record this season.
Ontario might still be hurting after the 87-63 defeat they got from River Valley when the teams last played back in December of 2023. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Kenney, who dropped a double-double on 31 points and 13 rebounds. Now that Ontario knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
