The Sylmar Spartans will square off against the Garfield Bulldogs at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday. Both teams are coming into the match red-hot, with Sylmar sitting on three straight wins and Garfield on 12.
Two teams were on the hunt for playoff glory, but only Sylmar walked away with it. They came out on top against the Knights by a score of 63-56 on Friday. Having run the score up that high, both teams probably have some extra defensive drills coming up.
Sylmar can attribute much of their success to Joseph Dickson, Jr, who scored 21 points along with three steals, and Nathan Lee, who scored 17 points along with five rebounds and four steals. Dickson, Jr has been hot recently, having posted two or more steals the last three times he's played. The team also got some help courtesy of Gabriel Sidon, who scored 11 points.
Meanwhile, Garfield beat Marshall 55-42 on Friday. Given Garfield's advantage in MaxPreps' California basketball rankings (they are ranked 235th, while Marshall is ranked 949th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Sylmar pushed their record up to 15-14 with that win, which was their eighth straight at home. Those good results were due in large part to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 77.1 points per game. As for Garfield, their win bumped their record up to 22-2.
Sylmar didn't have too much breathing room in their game against Garfield in their previous meeting back in January of 2020, but they still walked away with a 64-59 win. Does Sylmar have another victory up their sleeve, or will Garfield turn the tables on them? We'll have the answer soon enough.
