Basketball Game Preview: River Valley Raiders vs. Fairland Dragons

Two dominant guards in Braden Bennett and Brody Buchanan are getting ready to go toe-to-toe. The River Valley Raiders will face off against the Fairland Dragons at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Expect the scorekeeper to be kept busy: if their previous games are any indication, the two teams will really light up the scoreboard.

River Valley saw some tournament action on Monday. They came out on top against Piketon by a score of 56-49.

Braden Bennett

Points

02/17/25 @ Piketon	19
02/15/25 @ Alexander	21
02/07/25 vs Meigs	17

Multiple players turned in solid performances to lead River Valley to victory, but perhaps none more so than Bennett, who went 5-for-12 on his way to 19 points and four steals. The match was Bennett's third in a row with at least 17 points. Gary Truance was another key player, almost dropping a double-double with 12 points and nine boards.

Meanwhile, Fairland came tearing into last Wednesday's contest with 13 straight wins (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 16.6 points), and they left with even more momentum. They came within six points of losing the streak, but they secured a 68-62 W against the Panthers. Given the Dragons' advantage in MaxPreps' Ohio basketball rankings (they are ranked 14th, while the Panthers are ranked 77th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.

Fairland's win came from a few key players River Valley will need to keep an eye on. One of the most notable was Buchanan, who went 6-for-11 from beyond the arc to rack up 35 points. The dominant performance gave him a new career-high in points. The team also got some help courtesy of Cliff Fransen, who posted 15 points and six rebounds.

Fairland pushed their record up to 20-1 with the victory, which was their ninth straight on the road. As for River Valley, their record now sits at 3-20.