Natalia had already won two in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 26.5 points) and they went ahead and made it three on Friday. They secured a 52-48 W over the Nixon-Smiley Mustangs. This was a revenge matchup for Natalia, as the team was forced to settle for a 59-56 loss when these two played two weeks ago.
Despite the defeat, Nixon-Smiley saw an underclassman step up: sophomore Grace Gomez posted 14 points plus five rebounds. The dominant performance also gave Gomez a new career-high in threes (three). Another player making a difference was Janaelyn White, who scored three points along with four steals.
Natalia has been performing well recently as they've won five of their last six matches, which provided a massive bump to their 5-4 record this season. As for Nixon-Smiley, this is the second loss in a row for them and nudges their season record down to 3-6.
Natalia didn't take long to hit the court again: they've already played their next game, a 42-41 loss against Yorktown on the 23rd. Nixon-Smiley has also already played their next contest, a 55-25 victory against Nordheim on the 23rd.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
