Basketball Game Preview: Yates Center Wildcats vs. Altoona-Midway Jets

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Previous Games

02/13/24 - Away	26-69 L
02/14/23 - Home	48-50 L
02/15/22 - Away	50-34 W
12/20/19 - Home	62-36 W
12/14/18 - Away	59-20 W
+ 4 more games

Yates Center has gone 7-2 against Altoona-Midway recently and they'll look to pad the win column further on Friday. After both having extra time off, the two teams will dust off their jerseys to challenge one another at 5:00 p.m. Yates Center is coming into the matchup on a three-game losing streak.

Two weeks ago, Yates Center came up short against Uniontown and fell 51-40. While losing is never fun, the Wildcats can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' Kansas basketball rankings (they are ranked 230th, while the Eagles are ranked 105th).

Meanwhile, Altoona-Midway managed to keep up with Flinthills until halftime two weeks ago, but things quickly went downhill from there. Altoona-Midway might have been a little too into the holiday spirit, gifting Flinthills an easy 63-42 win. While the Jets didn't get the win, they did start the game off strong, beating the Mustangs 15-9 in the first quarter.

Yates Center will have to contain William Stackhouse as he made an impact in Altoona-Midway's last game. He dropped a double-double on 22 points and 13 boards. Stackhouse is also on a roll when it comes to steals, as he's now grabbed two or more in the last 26 games he's played dating back to last season. Another player making a difference was Kieran Foster, who posted 11 points.

Even though they lost, Altoona-Midway smashed the offensive glass and finished the game with 13 offensive rebounds. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now pulled down at least nine offensive boards in four consecutive contests.

Yates Center's loss dropped their record down to 1-4. As for Altoona-Midway, they now have a losing record at 2-3.

Yates Center was taken down by Altoona-Midway 69-26 when the teams last played back in February. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Stackhouse, who almost dropped a double-double on 15 points and nine steals. Now that Yates Center knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.