The Oakland Wildcats entered their tilt with the Santa Cruz Cardinals with seven consecutive wins but they'll enter their next game with eight. Oakland managed a 48-44 victory over Santa Cruz on Saturday. Winning is a bit easier when you outrebound your opponent 13 to 4 on the offensive boards, as Oakland did.
Oakland was led to victory by Jonathan Chapple and Anthony Lacy. Chapple scored 14 points along with two steals, while Lacy dropped a double-double on 14 points and ten rebounds. Another player making a difference was Rohm Neal, who scored six points.
Despite the loss, Santa Cruz still got an impressive performance from Demarco Hunter, who scored 24 points along with eight rebounds and four blocks. Hunter continues to roll, besting his previous point total in each of the last three games he's played. The team also got some help courtesy of Kirby Seals, who scored four points along with 12 assists and five rebounds.
Oakland has been performing incredibly well recently as they've won ten of their last 11 matches, which provided a nice bump to their 15-5 record this season. As for Santa Cruz, their defeat dropped their record down to 16-4.
Oakland and Oakland Tech will face off at 7:00 p.m. on January 24th without much rest after finishing up games yesterday. That game will pit two of the most dominant guards against one another: Ardarius Grayson and Chapple. As for Santa Cruz, they will head out on the road to take on Soquel at 12:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Soquel will have to bring their A-game into this one, as they are staring down a pretty big deficit in the MaxPreps California Rankings (they are ranked 636th, while Santa Cruz is ranked 114th).
