Preview: St. Mary's Rams vs. Aptos Mariners
St. Mary's has enjoyed the comforts of home their last three games, but now they'll head out on the road. The St. Mary's Rams and the Aptos Mariners will round out the year against one another at 1:00 p.m. on Thursday at. Expect the scorekeeper to be kept busy: if their previous games are any indication, both teams will really light up the scoreboard.
Last Friday, even if it wasn't a dominant performance, St. Mary's beat Monte Vista 58-54. 58 seems to be a good number for St. Mary's as the squad scooped up a victory with the same number of points in their previous game.
St. Mary's had a senior duo take command as Cayden Ward dropped a double-double on 19 points and 17 rebounds and Daniel Huerta scored 18 points along with nine rebounds. The game was Huerta's 11th in a row with at least ten points. The team also got some help courtesy of Mason Jamias, who scored six points.
Meanwhile, Aptos narrowly escaped with a victory as the squad sidled past Monterey 62-59.
Isaiah Ackerman continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines, scoring 28 points. The match was his 11th in a row with at least ten points. Johnny Cornejo was another key contributor, scoring 15 points.
St. Mary's pushed their record up to 9-2 with that victory, which was their third straight at home. As for Aptos, they have been performing well recently as they've won six of their last eight matches, which provided a nice bump to their 7-4 record this season.
This contest is shaping up to be a blowout: St. Mary's hasn't had any problem running up the score this season, having only averaged 62.5 points per game. It's a different story for Aptos, though, as they've been averaging only 58 points per game. The only thing between St. Mary's and another offensive beatdown is Aptos. Will they be able to keep them contained?
St. Mary's didn't have too much breathing room in their contest against Aptos in their previous meeting back in December of 2019, but they still walked away with a 40-35 victory. One of the biggest obstacles trying to stand in the way of that victory was Aptos' Jojoe Moreno, who scored 16 points. Now that he won't be playing on Thursday, will it be that much easier for St. Mary's to walk away with another win? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
