Preview: Panther Creek Catamounts vs. Apex Friendship Patriots
Panther Creek is 8-2 against Apex Friendship since December of 2016, and they'll have a chance to extend that success on Friday. The Panther Creek Catamounts will head out on the road to challenge the Apex Friendship Patriots at 8:00 p.m. Panther Creek knows how to get points on the board -- the team has finished with flashy point totals in its past ten matches -- so hopefully Apex Friendship likes a good challenge.
Panther Creek stacked an 11th blowout win onto their ever-increasing hoard on Tuesday. They blew past Green Hope 80-57. Having run the score up that high, both teams might be doing some extra defensive drills very soon.
Panther Creek can attribute much of their success to Logan Ware, who scored 15 points along with eight rebounds and three blocks, and Ja'tez Ward, who scored 14 points along with four steals. The team also got some help courtesy of Chris Uwayo, who scored nine points along with five assists and two steals.
Meanwhile, Apex Friendship had already won four in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 10.8 points), and they went ahead and made it five on Tuesday. They walked away with a 55-47 victory over Apex. Given Apex Friendship's advantage in MaxPreps' North Carolina basketball rankings (they are ranked 92nd, while Apex is ranked 415th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Panther Creek is on a roll lately: they've won nine of their last ten games, which provided a nice bump to their 16-5 record this season. As for Apex Friendship, their victory bumped their record up to 17-4.
Panther Creek strolled past Apex Friendship in their previous meeting back in January by a score of 68-52. The rematch might be a little tougher for Panther Creek since the squad won't have the home-court advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
