Basketball Game Preview: Gunnison Valley Bulldogs vs. Draper APA Eagles

The Gunnison Valley Bulldogs will take on the Draper APA Eagles at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. The two teams are strolling into their matchups after big wins in their previous games.

Gunnison Valley is on a roll after a high-stakes playoff matchup on Tuesday. They really took it to Salt Lake Academy for the full four quarters, racking up a 54-16 win. The Bulldogs pushed the score to 45-11 by the end of the third, a deficit the Griffins had no chance of recovering from.

Meanwhile, Draper APA came tearing into Thursday's game with five straight wins (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 51.6 points) and they left with even more momentum. They claimed a resounding 98-27 victory over the Lions. With the Eagles ahead 60-19 at the half, the contest was all but over already.

Gunnison Valley better focus on containing Aaliyah Baldwin and Samantha Kartchner as the pair were huge in Draper APA's win. Baldwin shot 8-for-12 from downtown and dropped a double-double with 28 points and 18 assists, while Kartchner almost dropped a double-double with 30 points and nine rebounds. The matchup was Kartchner's third in a row with at least 20 points. Vanessa Moctezuma was another key player, as she made all 5 shots she took for 11 points.

Draper APA was working as a unit and finished the game with 32 assists. That's the most assists they've managed all season.

Draper APA's win was their 16th straight at home dating back to last season, which pushed their record up to 17-5. A key ingredient in that success has been their performance when it comes to three-point shooting accuracy: their three-point shooting accuracy was 36.3% in those games and 25.4% outside of them. As for Gunnison Valley, their victory bumped their record up to 14-10.

Gunnison Valley was dealt a bruising 68-37 loss at the hands of Draper APA in their previous meeting back in November of 2021. Can Gunnison Valley avenge their defeat or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.