The Wiregrass Kings will challenge the Ballard Christian Eagle at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday. Keep an eye on the score for this one: the two teams posted some lofty point totals in their previous games.
On Friday, Wiregrass was able to grind out a solid win over East Central HomeSchool, taking the game 60-52.
Brayden Treadaway had another great game (as he tends to do), almost dropping a double-double with 19 points and nine rebounds. Another player making a difference was Trent Wilks, who posted 11 points and five boards.
Wiregrass smashed the offensive glass and finished the game with 16 offensive boards. They are 9-3 when they hit their own glass that hard.
Meanwhile, Ballard Christian came tearing into Tuesday's game with three straight wins (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 26 points), and they left with even more momentum. They claimed a resounding 75-16 victory over the Rams. The Eagle have made a habit of sweeping their opponents off the court, having now won nine contests by 22 points or more this season.
Ballard Christian had a senior duo take command as Keaton Murphy shot 73% from the field en route to 32 points in addition to eight rebounds and five assists and Landon Childree almost dropped a double-double with 21 points and nine steals. That makes it 11 consecutive games in which Murphy has scored at least a third of the Eagle's points. Noah Walton was another key player, putting up 11 points.
The win got Wiregrass back to even at 11-11. As for Ballard Christian, their victory bumped their record up to 14-5.
Rebounding is likely to be a big factor in this contest: Wiregrass has been crashing the boards this season, having averaged 36.3 boards per game. However, it's not like Ballard Christian struggles in that department as they've been averaging 33.3 rebounds. With both teams battling to corral missed shots, we'll see if one team can grab an edge.
Wiregrass couldn't quite get it done against Ballard Christian in their previous matchup last Tuesday as they fell 64-57. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Murphy, who dropped a double-double with 45 points and 17 boards. Now that the Kings know the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.
