The Phillips Wildcats will square off against the Lane Tech Champions at 5:00 p.m. on Friday. The two teams are sauntering into the matchup backed by comfortable wins in their prior games.
Phillips is headed in fresh off scoring the most points they have all season. They blew past Taft 61-32 on Wednesday.
Phillips' success was the result of a balanced attack that saw several players step up, but Akyla Williams led the charge by earning eight points in addition to six rebounds and four steals. Another player making a difference was Kamaria Sephus, who had 12 points.
Meanwhile, Lane Tech entered their tilt with Amundsen on Wednesday with two consecutive wins but they'll enter their next game with three. They blew past the Vikings 73-49. Given the Champions' advantage in MaxPreps' Illinois basketball rankings (they are ranked 78th, while the Vikings are ranked 386th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Melanie Blanco continued her habit of posting crazy stat lines, posting 18 points along with seven rebounds and six assists. The dominant performance also gave her a new career-high in threes (six). Grace Bush was another key player, going 5 for 7 en route to 12 points plus six rebounds and five assists.
Lane Tech smashed the offensive glass and finished the game with 23 offensive rebounds. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now pulled down at least 11 offensive rebounds in four consecutive matchups.
Phillips pushed their record up to 4-3 with the win, which was their fifth straight at home dating back to last season. Those good results were due in large part to their defensive effort, having only surrendered 29.0 points per game. As for Lane Tech, their victory bumped their record up to 4-1.
Rebounding is likely to be a big factor in this contest: Phillips has been smashing the glass this season, having averaged 24.6 rebounds per game. However, it's not like Lane Tech struggles in that department as they've been averaging 33.8. With both teams battling to corral missed shots, we'll see if one team can grab an edge Come back here after the game to get an analysis of the match and other basketball content.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
