The Curlew Cougars will be playing at home against the Odessa Tigers at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Both squads will be entering this one on the heels of a big victory.
Last Saturday, Curlew humbled the Rangers with a 53-25 victory. Given Curlew's advantage in MaxPreps' Washington basketball rankings (they are ranked 81st, while the Rangers are ranked 298th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Emma Lena Baker continued her habit of posting crazy stat lines, dropping a double-double on 22 points and 15 rebounds. The team also got some help courtesy of Annika Baker, who dropped a double-double on 11 points and 12 rebounds.
Meanwhile, Odessa had already won four in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 21.5 points), and they went ahead and made it five on Friday. Everything went their way against Selkirk as Odessa made off with a 43-18 victory. 43 seems to be a good number for Odessa as the team scooped up a win with the same number of points in their previous game.
It was another big night for Hayden Schuh, who dropped a double-double on 17 points and 11 rebounds. She is on a roll when it comes to steals, as she's now grabbed two or more in the last 14 games she's played. Another player making a difference was Melloney Deife, who scored eight points along with three steals and two blocks.
Curlew's victory was their seventh straight at home, which pushed their record up to 18-2. Those good results were due in large part to their offensive dominance across that stretch, as they averaged 50.3 points per game. As for Odessa, they are on a roll lately: they've won six of their last seven contests, which provided a nice bump to their 12-6 record this season.
This contest is one where the number of possessions is likely to be a big factor: Curlew have been smashing the glass this season, having averaged 36.4 rebounds per game. However, it's not like Odessa struggles in that department as they've been averaging 32.8 rebounds per game. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
Curlew was taken down by the Tigers 58-20 when the teams last played back in February of 2023. The contest was all but decided by halftime, at which point Curlew was down 40-10.
