Preview: Kearns Cougars vs. Hillcrest Huskies
Kearns is 9-1 against Hillcrest since February of 2017, and they'll have a chance to extend that success on Wednesday. The Kearns Cougars will head out on the road to face off against the Hillcrest Huskies at 7:00 p.m. Hopefully Kearns focused on turnovers this week since the team gave up 13 on Wednesday.
Kearns' recent rough patch got a bit rougher after their third straight loss. They suffered a tough 61-39 loss at the hands of Skyline. While losing is never fun, Kearns can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' Utah basketball rankings (they are ranked 89th, while Skyline is ranked 30th).
The loss doesn't tell the whole story though, as several players had good games. One of the most active was Ivan Kaufusi, who scored 9 points along with 12 rebounds. Mauricio Lemus was another key contributor, scoring 12 points.
Kearns struggled to work together and finished the game with only three assists. They were crushed by their opponents in that department as Skyline racked up 12.
Meanwhile, Hillcrest was able to grind out a solid victory over Summit Academy on Thursday, taking the game 55-45. The victory made it back-to-back wins for Hillcrest.
Multiple players turned in solid performances to lead Hillcrest to victory, but perhaps none more so than Zach Tanner, who scored 20 points along with 7 rebounds. That makes it two consecutive games in which Tanner has scored at least 25% of Hillcrest's points. The team also got some help courtesy of Rhett Robinson, who scored 14 points along with 4 steals.
Timpanogos' victory bumped their season record to 0-0 while Kearns' defeat dropped theirs to 0-2.
Keep an eye on the arc in Wednesday's matchup: Kearns have made nailing deep shots look easy this year this season, having only averaged 5.7 threes per game. It's a different story for Hillcrest, though, as they've been averaging only 6.5 per game. Given Kearns' sizeable advantage in that area, Hillcrest will need to find a way to close that gap. Check MaxPreps after the action for a full breakdown of the game and more basketball content.
Kearns didn't have too much breathing room in their match against Hillcrest in their previous matchup back in December of 2022, but they still walked away with a 67-62 victory. One of the biggest obstacles trying to stand in the way of that victory was Hillcrest's Dai'shaun Wilkerson-buie, who dropped a double-double on 22 points and 18 rebounds. Now that he won't be playing on Wednesday, will it be that much easier for Kearns to walk away with another win? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
