Basketball Game Preview: Poly Bears vs. Moreno Valley Vikings

The Poly Bears will head out to square off against the Moreno Valley Vikings at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday. The squads are rolling into the game with opposing streaks: Poly has struggled recently with three losses in a row, while Moreno Valley will arrive with seven straight wins.

Poly is headed into the contest out to prove that what happened against Rancho Christian on Tuesday (when they were outscored in every quarter) was just a minor bump in the road. Poly was beaten by Rancho Christian 86-41. While losing is never fun, the Bears can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' California basketball rankings (they are ranked 417th, while the Eagles are ranked 20th).

Despite the defeat, Poly saw an underclassman step up: freshman Abby Folsom posted 17 points. Folsom's evening made it five games in a row in which she has scored at least ten points. The team also got some help courtesy of Juliet Zaragoza, who scored eight points.

Meanwhile, winning is always nice, but doing so behind a season-high score is even better (just ask Moreno Valley). They blew past Valley View 84-46 on Tuesday. The Vikings have made a habit of sweeping their opponents off the court, having now won ten games by 20 points or more this season.

Moreno Valley has also been performing incredibly well recently as they've won 13 of their last 14 matches, which provided a nice bump to their 17-5 record this season. The wins came thanks to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 65.7 points per game. As for Poly, they now have a losing record at 10-11.

Poly took a serious blow against Moreno Valley in their previous matchup two weeks ago, falling 62-17. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Moreno Valley's Bella Medina, who went 6 of 14 on her way to 13 points along with eight assists and eight steals. Now that Poly knows the damage she can cause, will they be able to stop her this time? There's only one way to find out.