The Arizona College Prep Knights will head out on the road to challenge the Eastmark Firebirds at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday. Hopefully Arizona College Prep focused on turnovers this week since the team gave up 16 on Tuesday.
Arizona College Prep suffered their closest defeat yet this season on Tuesday. They fell just short of Poston Butte by a score of 48-45.
Even though the team lost, they still had their share of impressive performances. One of the most dominant came from Dominik Berumen, who scored eight points. Another player making a difference was Asher Perez, who scored 11 points along with three steals.
Eastmark has been a dominant force so far, but they're in the middle of a mini-slump at the moment. They took a 65-56 hit to the loss column at the hands of Combs on Tuesday. Having run the score up that high, both teams probably have some extra defensive drills coming up.
Despite the defeat, Eastmark got a solid performance out of Timothy Gorham, who scored 26 points along with nine rebounds and four steals. That was a full 46.4% of Eastmark's points, marking the third time in a row he's earned more than a third of the team's points. The team also got some help courtesy of Alex Burns, who scored 11 points along with nine rebounds and five assists.
Arizona College Prep has not been sharp recently, as they've lost four of their last five contests, which put a noticeable dent in their 17-7 record this season. As for Eastmark, their loss dropped their record down to 14-8.
Thursday's contest is shaping up to be a masterclass in shooting: Arizona College Prep have been dynamite from deep this season, having made 37.8% of their threes per game. However, it's not like Eastmark struggles in that department as they've made 45.6% of their threes per game this season. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
Arizona College Prep came up short against Eastmark when the teams last played two weeks ago, falling 66-54. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Gorham, who scored 25 points along with eight rebounds. Now that Arizona College Prep knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.
