Preview: Timothy Christian Trojans vs. Illiana Christian Vikings
The Timothy Christian Trojans will head out on the road to face off against the Illiana Christian Vikings at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. Expect the scorekeeper to be kept busy: if their previous games are any indication, the pair will really light up the scoreboard.
Last Tuesday, everything went Timothy Christian's way against Chicago Christian as Timothy Christian made off with a 63-39 win.
Stephen Hribal continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines, scoring 21 points along with six rebounds. The team also got some help courtesy of Marc Gamble, who scored eight points along with five assists and five rebounds.
Meanwhile, Illiana Christian had already won two in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 27 points), and they went ahead and made it three on Saturday. They were the clear victor by a 66-46 margin over Chicago Christian. Given Illiana Christian's advantage in MaxPreps's basketball rankings in their respective home states (they are ranked 217th in Indiana, while Chicago Christian is ranked 512th in Illinois), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Illiana Christian can attribute much of their success to Andy Spoelman, who scored 13 points along with six assists and four blocks, and Isaac Sherwood, who scored 23 points. Those six assists set a new season-high mark for him. Jake Scott was another key contributor, scoring seven points.
Timothy Christian's win bumped their record up to 4-5. As for Illiana Christian, they now have a winning record of 4-3.
Keep an eye on the arc in Friday's game: Timothy Christian have made nailing deep shots look easy this year this season, having only averaged 6.3 threes per game. It's a different story for Illiana Christian, though, as they've been averaging only 5.3 threes per game. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
Timothy Christian came up short against Illiana Christian in their previous meeting back in January, falling 53-40. Can Timothy Christian avenge their defeat or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.
