Friends Select is 0-10 against the Lions since January of 2015 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Tuesday. Friends Select will head out on the road to challenge the Academy of the New Church Lions at 5:30 p.m. Friends Select is no doubt hoping to put an end to a seven-game streak of away losses dating back to last season.
Friends Select pushed their score all the way to 57 on Thursday, but even that wasn't enough to win. They took a 66-57 hit to the loss column at the hands of Friends' Central. While losing is never fun, Friends Select can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' Pennsylvania basketball rankings (they are ranked 219th, while the are ranked 24th).
Meanwhile, Academy of the New Church waltzed into their match on Saturday with five straight wins but they left with six. They snuck past Malvern Prep with a 61-57 victory. Having run the score up that high, both teams might be doing some extra defensive drills very soon.
Multiple players turned in solid performances to lead Academy of the New Church to victory, but perhaps none more so than Bahsil Laster, who scored 24 points. The team also got some help courtesy of Ryan Warren, who scored 15 points along with seven rebounds and four blocks.
Friends Select's loss dropped their record down to 6-14. As for Academy of the New Church, they have been performing incredibly well recently as they've won nine of their last ten matchups, which provided a nice bump to their 18-4 record this season.
Friends Select came up short against the Lions when the teams last played back in January, falling 76-72. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Laster, who scored 23 points along with six assists and six rebounds. Now that Friends Select knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.
