The Foothill Falcons are ranked highly in their home state, and on Monday they took on another highly ranked team in the form of the Liberty Magnet Patriots. Foothill fell to Liberty Magnet 63-57. Having run the score up that high, both teams probably have some extra defensive drills coming up.
Several Falcons players turned in solid performances, despite ultimately coming up short. Perhaps the best among those players was Zak Abdalla, who scored 18 points along with five assists. Abdalla scored a full 31.6% of Foothill's points, the fifth time in a row he's earned more than a third of the team's points. The team also got some help courtesy of Shawn Salazar, who scored 17 points.
Liberty Magnet had a senior duo take command as Howard Gaskins Jr. scored 16 points along with three steals and Marquise McPipe scored 14 points along with four steals. The match was McPipe's fourth in a row with at least ten points. Another player making a difference was Jaylen Peters, who scored 12 points along with seven rebounds.
Foothill has been struggling recently, as they've lost three of their last four contests, which put a noticeable dent in their 3-3 record this season. As for Liberty Magnet, their win bumped their record up to 10-2.
Foothill won't have much time to rest: their next contest is against Redondo Union at 3:00 p.m. on December 19th. Redondo Union knows how to get points on the board -- the squad has finished with flashy point totals in its past seven contests -- so hopefully Foothill likes a good challenge. Liberty Magnet is on the road again on Tuesday and play against Bishop O'Dowd at 9:00 p.m. on December 19th. Bishop O'Dowd will have to bring their A-game into this one, as they are staring down a pretty big deficit in their respective state's rankings (they are ranked 49th in California, while Liberty Magnet is ranked second in Louisiana).
