Basketball Game Preview: Seaside Spartans vs. Watsonville Wildcatz

The Seaside Spartans will challenge the Watsonville Wildcatz at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday. The squads are rolling into the game with opposing streaks: Seaside has struggled recently with 22 losses in a row, while Watsonville will arrive with four straight victories.

Last Tuesday, Seaside took a blow against Stevenson, falling 68-32.

Meanwhile, Watsonville was able to grind out a solid win over Marina on Tuesday, taking the game 58-45. Given the Wildcatz's advantage in MaxPreps' California basketball rankings (they are ranked 442nd, while the Mariners are ranked 1035th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.

Watsonville's win came from a few key players Seaside will need to keep an eye on. One of the most notable was George Madec, who went 5 of 7 en route to 11 points. Leon Madec was another key player, putting up 12 points in addition to five assists and five rebounds.

Watsonville has been performing incredibly well recently as they've won 11 of their last 12 matches, which provided a nice bump to their 15-6 record this season. Those victories came thanks to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 71.9 points per game. As for Seaside, their defeat dropped their record down to 0-20.

Seaside took a serious blow against Watsonville when the teams last played back in January, falling 82-38. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Watsonville's Max Aceves, who went 11 for 18 on his way to 27 points. Now that Seaside knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.