The Grace Christian Crusaders pushed their score all the way to 63 on Friday, but even that wasn't enough to win. They suffered a tough 84-63 loss at the hands of Southern Wake Academy. Despite running the score up even higher than they did in their last game last Tuesday (60), Grace Christian still had to take the loss.
Grace Christian's defeat came despite a true team effort from the offense, with many players turning in solid performances. Perhaps the best among them was Ma'Kyi Butler, who dropped a double-double on 21 points and ten rebounds. The team also got some help courtesy of Nate Jones, who scored 16 points along with seven assists.
Southern Wake Academy's success was the result of a balanced attack that saw several players step up, but Chris Crudup led the charge by scoring 25 points along with eight rebounds. Crudup has been hot recently, having posted eight or more rebounds the last three times he's played. Kobe Plata was another key contributor, scoring 19 points along with six rebounds and two steals.
This is the second loss in a row for Grace Christian and nudges their season record down to 11-10. As for Southern Wake Academy, they have been performing well recently as they've won four of their last five contests, which provided a nice bump to their 11-7 record this season.
Both squads are looking forward to the support of their home crowds in their upcoming games. Grace Christian will take on Eastern Randolph at 6:30 p.m. on Monday. Hopefully Eastern Randolph focused on turnovers this week since the team gave up seven on Friday. As for Southern Wake Academy, they the luxury of staying home another game and will welcome Woods Charter at 7:30 p.m. on January 23rd. Woods Charter will have to bring their A-game into this one, as they are staring down a pretty big deficit in the MaxPreps North Carolina Rankings (they are ranked 540th, while Southern Wake Academy is ranked 182nd).
