Two dominant guards in Chriseanie Nealy and Jonathan Chapple are getting ready to go toe-to-toe. The Pinole Valley Spartans and the Oakland Wildcats will face off at 9:00 a.m. on December 27th without much rest after finishing up games yesterday. Pinole Valley knows how to get points on the board -- the team has finished with flashy point totals in its past six matchups -- so hopefully Oakland likes a good challenge.
Pinole Valley pushed their score all the way to 59 on Friday, but even that wasn't enough to win. They fell 69-59 to Albany. Despite running the score up even higher than they did on Thursday (58), Pinole Valley still had to take the loss.
Despite the loss, Pinole Valley saw an underclassman step up: Nealy scored 24 points along with seven assists. Nealy scored a full 40.7% of Pinole Valley's points, the fourth time in a row he's earned more than a third of the team's points. Another player making a difference was Romyn Waugh, who scored 12 points.
Meanwhile, even though Juan Diego Catholic scored an imposing 55 points on Thursday, Oakland still came out on top. Oakland took their match against Juan Diego Catholic 62-55. The win was all the more spectacular given Oakland's disadvantage in MaxPreps's basketball rankings in their respective home states (they are ranked 260th in California, while Juan Diego Catholic is ranked 51st in Utah).
Pinole Valley now has a losing record at 5-6. As for Oakland, their win bumped their record up to 6-4.
Pinole Valley came up short against Oakland in their previous meeting back in December of 2022, falling 73-66. Thankfully for Pinole Valley, Money Williams (who dropped a double-double on 24 points and 12 rebounds) won't be suiting up this time. Will that be enough to change the final result? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
