Basketball Game Preview: Pine Creek Eagles vs. Doherty Spartans

Pine Creek is 1-9 against Doherty since February of 2019 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Thursday. The Pine Creek Eagles will face off against the Doherty Spartans at 7:00 p.m. Keep an eye on the score for this one: the two teams posted some lofty point totals in their previous games.

Last Tuesday, Pine Creek didn't have too much breathing room in their matchup against Rampart, but they still walked away with a 55-51 victory.

Meanwhile, Doherty entered their tilt with Vista Ridge on Tuesday with three consecutive wins , and they'll enter their next game with four. Everything went their way against the Wolves as they made off with a 73-53 win. The Spartans pushed the score to 55-33 by the end of the third, a deficit the Wolves cut but never quite recovered from.

Pine Creek better keep an eye on Elijah Mack. He was instrumental in Doherty's win, dropping a double-double with 22 points and 11 boards. Mack is also on a roll when it comes to field goal percentage, as he's posted one of at least 50% in the last four games he's played. Another player making a difference was Gavin Gilbert, who made all 5 shots he took racking up 12 points and four steals.

Doherty was working as a unit and finished the game with 19 assists. They racked up seven more assists than Vista Ridge's also-impressive total of 12.

Pine Creek has been performing well recently as they've won four of their last five contests, which provided a nice bump to their 12-10 record this season. Those victories came thanks in part to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 57.2 points over those games. As for Doherty, their record is now 13-8.

Pine Creek suffered a grim 58-35 defeat to Doherty in their previous matchup on February 4th. That game was all but decided by halftime, at which point Pine Creek was down 33-12.