Preview: Athenian Owls vs. Clear Lake Cardinals
The Athenian Owls will be playing at home against the Clear Lake Cardinals at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Given that the two teams suffered a loss in their last game, they both have a little extra motivation heading into this match.
Athenian pushed their score all the way to 61 on Saturday, but even that wasn't enough to win. They took a 71-61 hit to the loss column at the hands of Head-Royce. Athenian has not had much luck with Head-Royce recently, as the team's come up short the last three times they've met.
The losing side was boosted by Surya Devasenapathy, who scored 26 points. As a matter of fact, that's the most points he has scored all season. Noah Olivier was another key contributor, scoring 11 points.
Meanwhile, Clear Lake ended up a good deal behind Kelseyville on Thursday and lost 69-50.
Defeat or not, Clear Lake got some senior leadership from Jake Soderquist and Cody Hayes. Soderquist scored 17 points, while Hayes. scored 14 points. Soderquist has been hot recently, having posted 16 or more points the last four times he's played.
Athenian's loss ended a three-game streak of away wins and brought them to 21-7. As for Clear Lake, their defeat dropped their record down to 17-10.
Some high-performance offense is likely on the agenda as the two teams are some of the highest scoring teams in the league. Athenian hasn't had any problem running up the score this season, having averaged 64.2 points per game. However, it's not like Clear Lake struggles in that department as they've been averaging 58.4 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.
Everything went Athenian's way against Clear Lake when the teams last played back in February of 2022 as Athenian made off with a 65-42 victory. Will Athenian repeat their success, or does Clear Lake have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.
