The West Liberty-Salem Tigers will head out on the road to square off against the Fairbanks Panthers at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. Keep an eye on the score for this one: both teams posted some lofty point totals in their previous games.
A well-balanced attack led West Liberty-Salem over Northeastern in every quarter on their way to victory on Friday. West Liberty-Salem put the hurt on Northeastern with a sharp 68-48 victory. Given West Liberty-Salem's advantage in MaxPreps' Ohio basketball rankings (they are ranked 350th, while Northeastern is ranked 703rd), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Meanwhile, Fairbanks can now show off 12 landslide victories after their most recent matchup on Monday. They simply couldn't be stopped as they easily beat Madison Plains 63-23 at home. The match was all but wrapped up at the end of the third, by which point Fairbanks had established a 29 point advantage.
West Liberty-Salem pushed their record up to 15-4 with that victory, which was their seventh straight at home. Those victories were due in large part to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 57.0 points per game. As for Fairbanks, they are on a roll lately: they've won 13 of their last 15 matches, which provided a nice bump to their 17-4 record this season.
West Liberty-Salem didn't have too much breathing room in their match against Fairbanks when the teams last played back in December of 2023, but they still walked away with a 65-61 victory. The rematch might be a little tougher for West Liberty-Salem since the team won't have the home-court advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
