The Valley Vikings entered their tilt with the Manzano Monarchs with seven consecutive wins but they'll enter their next game with eight. Valley came out on top against Manzano by a score of 67-55 on Wednesday. Given Valley's advantage in MaxPreps' New Mexico basketball rankings (they are ranked tenth, while Manzano is ranked 68th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Multiple players turned in solid performances to lead Valley to victory, but perhaps none more so than Julian Chavez, who scored 15 points along with six rebounds and two steals. Chavez hasn't dropped below two steals for six straight games. Another player making a difference was Tyler Kozlowski, who scored 17 points along with two steals.
Manzano lost despite a true team effort on the offense, the best among them being Donavan Rhodes, who scored 16 points along with two steals. The team also got some help courtesy of Joaquin Ramos, who scored 12 points along with six rebounds.
Valley has been performing incredibly well recently as they've won nine of their last ten matches, which provided a nice bump to their 12-3 record this season. As for Manzano, their defeat was their 12th straight at home, which dropped their record down to 4-10.
Valley will take on Atrisco Heritage Academy at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. One thing working in Atrisco Heritage Academy's favor is that they have posted big point totals every time they've taken the court this season. As for Manzano, they will head out on the road to face off against Highland at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Hopefully Highland focused on turnovers this week since the team gave up 11 last Tuesday.
