The Aptos Mariners will be staying on the road on Thursday to face off against the St. Mary's Rams at 1:00 p.m. on December 28th. One thing working in Aptos' favor is that they have posted big point totals in their last eight contests.
Even though Monterey scored an imposing 59 points on Saturday, Aptos still came out on top. Aptos narrowly escaped with a victory as the team sidled past Monterey 62-59.
It was another big night for Isaiah Ackerman, who scored 28 points. Those 28 points set a new season-high mark for him. The team also got some help courtesy of Johnny Cornejo, who scored 15 points.
Meanwhile, St. Mary's waltzed into their matchup Friday with three straight wins but they left with four. They snuck past Monte Vista with a 58-54 win. 58 seems to be a good number for St. Mary's as the team scooped up a win with the same number of points in their previous game.
Daniel Huerta and Cayden Ward were among the main playmakers for St. Mary's as the former scored 18 points along with nine rebounds and the latter dropped a double-double on 19 points and 17 rebounds. Those 17 rebounds set a new season-high mark for him. Another player making a difference was Mason Jamias, who scored six points.
Aptos is on a roll lately: they've won six of their last eight games, which provided a nice bump to their 7-4 record this season. As for St. Mary's, their victory was their third straight at home, which pushed their record up to 9-2.
Keep an eye on the arc in Thursday's match: Aptos have made nailing deep shots look easy this year this season, having only averaged 6.9 threes per game. However, it's not like St. Mary's struggles in that department as they've been averaging only 5 threes per game. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
Aptos came up short against St. Mary's when the teams last played back in December of 2019, falling 40-35. Can Aptos avenge their loss or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.
