Basketball Game Preview: Eagle Valley Devils vs. Rifle Bears

The Eagle Valley Devils will face off against the Rifle Bears at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday. The teams are on pretty different trajectories at the moment (Eagle Valley has six straight victories, Rifle has three straight defeats), but none of that matters once you're on the court.

Last Thursday, Eagle Valley beat Palisade 72-64.

It was another big night for Dylan Zoller, who went 7 for 13 on his way to 22 points in addition to eight assists and seven boards. The matchup was his fifth in a row with at least ten points. The team also got some help courtesy of Brian Fontana, who went 6 of 11 on his way to 16 points.

Zoller wasn't the only one working in the assists department: Eagle Valley was working as a unit and finished the game with 22 assists. That's the most assists they've posted since back in January of 2024.

Meanwhile, Rifle played a tough contest on Friday in which they were outscored in every quarter. They lost 78-53 to Aspen. While losing is never fun, the Bears can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' Colorado basketball rankings (they are ranked 267th, while the Skiers are ranked 50th).

Eagle Valley is on a roll lately: they've won seven of their last eight games, which provided a nice bump to their 9-2 record this season. The wins came thanks to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 69.6 points per game. As for Rifle, their loss dropped their record down to 2-7.

Eagle Valley strolled past Rifle in their previous meeting back in February of 2022 by a score of 67-53. One of the biggest obstacles trying to stand in the way of that victory was Rifle's Logan Gross, who dropped a double-double on 25 points and 21 boards. Now that he won't be playing on Saturday, will it be easier for Eagle Valley to walk away with another win? There's only one way to find out.