Preview: North Lincoln Knights vs. North Iredell Raiders
North Lincoln is 1-9 against the Raiders since December of 2015 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Friday. The North Lincoln Knights will head out on the road to square off against the North Iredell Raiders at 6:00 p.m. Hopefully North Lincoln focused on turnovers this week since the team gave up 17 on Tuesday.
Even though North Lincoln has not done well against the Red Tornadoes recently (they were 0-6 in their previous six matchups), they didn't let the past get in their way. North Lincoln came out on top against the Red Tornadoes by a score of 48-38. The win made it back-to-back wins for North Lincoln.
Hailey Hagler and Ally Smith were among the main playmakers for North Lincoln as the former scored 14 points along with five assists and three steals and the latter scored 15 points along with six steals. Smith continues to roll, besting her previous point total in each of the last four games she's played.
Meanwhile, even if it wasn't a dominant performance, North Iredell beat the Indians 49-44 on Tuesday. Given North Iredell's advantage in MaxPreps' North Carolina basketball rankings (they are ranked 100th, while the Indians are ranked 206th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
North Lincoln is on a roll lately: they've won three of their last four contests, which provided a nice bump to their 13-6 record this season. North Iredell's record is now 14-5.
Everything went North Lincoln's way against the Raiders in their previous meeting back in January as the Knights made off with a 56-33 victory. The rematch might be a little tougher for North Lincoln since the squad won't have the home-court advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
