Basketball Game Preview: New Bern Bears vs. North Pitt Panthers

The New Bern Bears will take on the North Pitt Panthers in a holiday battle at at 6:00 p.m. on Monday. The timing isn't great for New Bern: they have been struggling with eight straight losses at home dating back to last season, while North Pitt has snatched up seven consecutive wins on the road also dating back to last season.

On Friday, New Bern came up short against Jacksonville and fell 55-42. While losing is never fun, the Bears can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' North Carolina basketball rankings (they are ranked 421st, while the Cardinals are ranked 169th).

Meanwhile, it was a proper cat-fight when North Pitt duked it out withOverhills on Friday. North Pitt had to suffer through a 80-32 loss at the hands of Overhills. The Panthers were down 52-25 at the end of the third quarter, and things only got worse from there.

North Pitt now has a losing record at 3-4. As for New Bern, their loss dropped their record down to 1-7.

New Bern came up short against North Pitt when the teams last played back in November, falling 31-26. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of North Pitt's Zihanna Lightfoot, who almost dropped a double-double on nine points and ten boards. Now that New Bern knows the damage she can cause, will they be able to stop her this time? There's only one way to find out.