Basketball Game Preview: Mission Oak Hawks vs. Strathmore Spartans

The Mission Oak Hawks will venture away from home to take on the Strathmore Spartans at 6:15 p.m. on Monday.

On Saturday, Mission Oak had to suffer through a 74-36 loss at the hands of Bullard. While losing is never fun, the Hawks can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' California basketball rankings (they are ranked 425th, while the Knights are ranked 144th).

Meanwhile, Strathmore came tearing into Friday's matchup with three straight wins (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 18.7 points) and they left with even more momentum. They simply couldn't be stopped as they easily beat the Grizzlies 65-19. The game was all but wrapped up at the end of the third, by which point the Spartans had established a 35 point advantage.

Strathmore has been performing well recently as they've won five of their last six contests, which provided a massive bump to their 12-8 record this season. The wins came thanks to their defensive effort, having only surrendered 28.0 points per game. As for Mission Oak, this is the second loss in a row for them and nudges their season record down to 10-11.

Mission Oak was able to grind out a solid win over Strathmore in their previous meeting back in December of 2023, winning 46-33. Will Mission Oak repeat their success, or does Strathmore have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.