Preview: Sanderson Spartans vs. Broughton Capitals
The Sanderson Spartans will be playing at home against the Broughton Capitals at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. Expect the scorekeeper to be kept busy: if their previous games are any indication, both teams will really light up the scoreboard.
Winning is just a little bit easier when you work as a team to rack up seven more assists than your opponent, a fact Sanderson proved on Tuesday. Everything went their way against Enloe as Sanderson made off with a 58-33 victory. 58 seems to be a good number for Sanderson as the squad scooped up a win with the same number of points in their previous game.
Nathan Fife and Patrick Dalton were among the main playmakers for Sanderson as the former scored 21 points and the latter shot 5-for-8 from beyond the arc and dropped a double-double on 19 points and 12 rebounds. That makes it four consecutive games in which Fife has scored at least a third of Sanderson's points. The team also got some help courtesy of Gordie Balas, who scored six points along with five rebounds.
Meanwhile, after a string of three wins, Broughton's good fortune finally ran out on Tuesday. They lost to Cardinal Gibbons on the road by a decisive 73-55 margin. While losing is never fun, Broughton can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' North Carolina basketball rankings (they are ranked 205th, while Cardinal Gibbons is ranked 65th).
Despite the loss, Broughton saw an underclassman step up: Jordan Page dropped a double-double on 29 points and ten rebounds. As a matter of fact, that's the most points Page has scored all season. Another player making a difference was Harrison Peatross, who scored ten points.
Broughton struggled to work together and finished the game with only an assist. That's the fewest assists they've managed all season.
Sanderson is on a roll lately: they've won seven of their last eight matchups, which provided a nice bump to their 14-7 record this season. As for Broughton, their defeat dropped their record down to 9-12.
Some high-performance offense is likely on the agenda as both teams are some of the highest scoring teams in the league. Sanderson hasn't had any problem running up the score this season, having averaged 59 points per game. However, it's not like Broughton struggles in that department as they've been averaging 55.3 points per game. With both teams so easily able to put up points, the only question left is who can run the score up higher.
Sanderson beat Broughton 63-54 in their previous matchup back in January. Will Sanderson repeat their success, or does Broughton have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.
