Two dominant players in Ava Graham and Laney Pearson are getting ready to go toe-to-toe. The Keswick Christian Crusaders will finish 2023 at home by hosting the Seminole Warhawks at 1:00 p.m. on Thursday. Keswick Christian will be looking to keep their seven-game home win streak (dating back to last season) alive.
Even though Clearwater scored an imposing 55 points last Friday, Keswick Christian still came out on top. Keswick Christian walked away with a 64-55 victory over Clearwater.
It was another big night for Graham, who scored 20 points along with eight rebounds and six assists. That makes it eight consecutive games in which she has scored at least 25% of Keswick Christian's points. Another player making a difference was Robyn Cantwell, who scored 19 points along with four steals.
Meanwhile, Seminole was just a bucket shy of victory on Thursday and fell 40-39 to Braden River. Seminole has now taken an 'L' in back-to-back games.
Defeat or not, Seminole got some senior leadership from Pearson who scored ten points along with eight rebounds and four steals and Devon Swartz who scored eight points along with four blocks. Pearson scored a full 25.6% of Seminole's points, the 12th time in a row she's earned more than a third of the team's points. The team also got some help courtesy of Kaitlyn Hallock, who scored six points.
Keswick Christian's win bumped their record up to 6-2. As for Seminole, their defeat dropped their record down to 4-8.
Keep an eye on the arc in Thursday's game: Keswick Christian have made nailing deep shots look easy this year this season, having only averaged 5 threes per game. It's a different story for Seminole, though, as they've been averaging only 2.9 threes per game. Given Keswick Christian's sizeable advantage in that area, Seminole will need to find a way to close that gap.
Everything went Keswick Christian's way against Seminole in their previous matchup back in December of 2022 as Keswick Christian made off with a 59-39 win. Will Keswick Christian repeat their success, or does Seminole have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.
