The Urbana Tigers will face off against the Manual Rams at 5:30 p.m. on Friday. The timing isn't great for Urbana: they have been struggling with nine straight losses at home dating back to last season, while Manual has snatched up seven consecutive wins on the road also dating back to last season.
On Monday, Urbana ended up a good deal behind Tolono Unity and lost 46-30. The Tigers were down 41-19 at the end of the third quarter, which was just too much to recover from.
Lai'Yonna Harper was Urbana's leading scorer, having posted 12 points. Zaniyah Ward held things down on the boards with six rebounds.
Meanwhile, winning is always nice, but doing so behind a season-high score is even better (just ask Manual). They claimed a resounding 68-40 win over East Peoria. Given the Rams' advantage in MaxPreps' Illinois basketball rankings (they are ranked 125th, while the Raiders are ranked 522nd) , the win on Wednesday wasn't entirely unexpected.
Urbana's loss dropped their record down to 1-5. As for Manual, their victory bumped their record up to 7-1.
Urbana took a serious blow against Manual in their previous matchup back in January, falling 60-13. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of the Rams' Nyanna Payton, who dropped a double-double with 14 points and 14 rebounds. Now that the Tigers know the damage she can cause, will they be able to stop her this time? There's only one way to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
