Basketball Game Preview: West Jefferson Roughriders vs. Northeastern Jets

The West Jefferson Roughriders will head out to square off against the Northeastern Jets at 7:30 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.

On Wednesday, West Jefferson didn't have too much breathing room in their matchup against Catholic Central, but they still walked away with a 66-60 win.

Austin Buescher

Blocked Shots

02/12/25 @ Catholic Central	3
02/07/25 @ Mechanicsburg	3
02/04/25 vs Cedarville	8
01/31/25 vs Fairbanks	6
01/28/25 @ Middletown Christian	5
+ 3 more games

West Jefferson's success was the result of a balanced attack that saw several players step up, but Austin Buescher led the charge by almost dropping a double-double with 20 points and nine boards. Buescher is also on a roll when it comes to blocks, as he's now posted three or more in the last eight games he's played. Another player making a difference was Nick Fitzpatrick, who went 6-for-14 en route to 13 points and six rebounds.

West Jefferson was working as a unit and finished the game with 23 assists. That's the most assists they've posted since the start of last season.

Meanwhile, Northeastern suffered their closest loss since January 27, 2024 on Saturday. They fell just short of Northwestern by a score of 76-73. Despite running the score up even higher than they did in their prior game on Friday (61), the Jets still had to take the loss.

This is the second loss in a row for Northeastern and nudges their season record down to 9-12. That patch can't be blamed on the team's offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 67.0 points over those games. As for West Jefferson, their record is now 10-11.

West Jefferson suffered a grim 74-54 defeat to Northeastern when the teams last played back in January. Can West Jefferson avenge their defeat or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.