Basketball Preview: Yuma Catholic Shamrocks vs. American Leadership Academy - West Foothills Guardians
The Yuma Catholic Shamrocks will be playing at home against the American Leadership Academy - West Foothills Guardians at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Both squads will be entering this one on the heels of a big victory.
A well-balanced attack led Yuma Catholic over the Dust Devils in every quarter on their way to victory on Saturday. Given that consistent dominance, it should come as no surprise that Yuma Catholic blew the Dust Devils out of the water with a 54-5 final score. The team ran away with 42 points in the first half and mostly just sat on those to pick up the victory.
Amanda Wiley was her usual excellent self, scoring 24 points along with eight rebounds and four steals. Wiley is crushing the rebound category: she's posted at least eight every time she's taken the court this season. The team also got some help courtesy of Clarissa Meza, who scored three points along with six assists and three steals.
Meanwhile, American Leadership Academy - West Foothills had already won three in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 49 points), and they went ahead and made it four on Monday. They breezed by Odyssey Institute on the road to the tune of 51-23.
Yuma Catholic is on a roll lately: they've won six of their last seven matches, which provided a massive bump to their 15-9 record this season. As for American Leadership Academy - West Foothills, they pushed their record up to 12-10 with that victory, which was their third straight on the road.
Yuma Catholic came up short against the Guardians when the teams last played back in January, falling 49-44. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of American Leadership Academy - West Foothills' Izabella Juarez, who shot 8-for-14 from long range and dropped a double-double on 35 points and ten steals. Now that Yuma Catholic knows the damage she can cause, will they be able to stop her this time? There's only one way to find out.
