Preview: Santa Fe Indians vs. Ball Tornadoes
Santa Fe has enjoyed a two-game homestand but will soon have to dust off their road jerseys. They will challenge the Ball Tornadoes at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Hopefully Santa Fe focused on turnovers this week since the team gave up 25 on Tuesday.
Last Tuesday, Santa Fe came up short against La Porte and fell 60-53. While losing is never fun, Santa Fe can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' Texas basketball rankings (they are ranked 729th, while La Porte is ranked 311th).
Despite the loss, Santa Fe had strong showings from Kaidan Mata, who went 6 for 11 from beyond the arc en route to 23 points and 2 assists, and Kenny Torres, who scored seven points along with 11 rebounds and five steals. As a matter of fact, that's the most points Mata has scored all season. The team also got some help courtesy of Aidan Jewell, who scored nine points along with seven rebounds and two steals.
Meanwhile, Ball had already won two in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 5 points), and they went ahead and made it three on Tuesday. They walked away with a 69-62 win over Friendswood. Having run the score up that high, both teams might be doing some extra defensive drills very soon.
Santa Fe has been struggling recently, as they've lost four of their last five games, which put a noticeable dent in their 11-16 record this season. As for Ball, their win bumped their record up to 17-8.
Santa Fe might still be hurting after the 76-52 loss they got from Ball when the teams last played back in December of 2023. Can Santa Fe avenge their loss or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.
