The McKenzie Tigers are taking a road trip to face off against the Pike Liberal Arts Patriots at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday. Expect the scorekeeper to be kept busy: if their previous games are any indication, these teams will really light up the scoreboard.
While Tigers fans will have to keep waiting for their squad to come home, they shouldn't be too worried about the road trip considering the result of Tuesday's season opener. They walked away with a 74-65 victory over Pleasant Home on Tuesday.

Quay Jackson
| 12/02/25 @ Pleasant Home | 13 |
| 12/17/24 vs Pleasant Home | 10 |
| 01/09/25 @ Elba | 9 |
| 01/10/25 vs Kinston | 8 |
| 12/05/24 vs Opp | 8 |
McKenzie can attribute much of their success to Quay Jackson, who dropped a double-double with 20 points and 13 assists, and Devin Covan, who shot 6-for-11 from deep and dropped a double-double with 24 points and ten rebounds. Those 13 assists gave Jackson a new career-high. The team also got some help courtesy of Nathan Huggins, who posted ten points and six boards.
Meanwhile, winning is always nice, but doing so behind a season-high score is even better (just ask Pike Liberal Arts). They pulled ahead with a 74-73 photo finish over Samson on Tuesday. The win continues a trend for the Patriots in their matchups with the Tigers: they've now won six in a row.
McKenzie didn't have too much breathing room in their game against Pike Liberal Arts in their previous meeting back in December of 2024, but they still walked away with a 43-37 victory. The rematch might be a little tougher for the Tigers since the team won't have the home-court advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps