Pinole Valley is 1-9 against Albany since February of 2015 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Friday. Having just played yesterday, the Pinole Valley Spartans will head out on the road to face off against the Albany Cougars at 5:30 p.m. on December 22nd. Pinole Valley has been dominant on offense recently, as they've racked up an incredible 326 points over their last five matchups.
On Thursday, Pinole Valley was able to grind out a solid win over Hercules, taking the game 58-48.
Pinole Valley can attribute much of their success to Jaylin Reed, who scored 14 points, and Chriseanie Nealy, who dropped a double-double on 17 points and 11 rebounds. That makes it three consecutive games in which Nealy has scored at least 25% of Pinole Valley's points. The team also got some help courtesy of Cj Jensen, who scored seven points along with five rebounds.
Meanwhile, Albany entered their tilt with Novato with four consecutive wins but they'll enter their next game with five. Albany had just enough and edged Novato out 51-48. 51 seems to be a good number for Albany as the squad scooped up a win with the same number of points in their previous game.
Pinole Valley is on a roll lately: they've won three of their last four games, which provided a nice bump to their 5-5 record this season. As for Albany, their victory was their eighth straight on the road dating back to last season, which pushed their record up to 7-2.
Pinole Valley came up short against Albany when the teams last played back in May of 2021, falling 52-43. Can Pinole Valley avenge their defeat or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.
