Rancho Mirage has enjoyed a two-game homestand but will soon have to dust off their road jerseys. They will face off against the Palm Desert Aztecs at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday. Rancho Mirage comes in on a streak of failing to score more than 25 points in their last six games, a trend the squad is of course eager to reverse.
Rancho Mirage suffered their biggest defeat since December 28, 2023 on Tuesday. They were beaten by Xavier Prep 67-15. While losing is never fun, Rancho Mirage can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' California basketball rankings (they are ranked 1303rd, while Xavier Prep is ranked 217th).
Even though Palm Desert has not done well against La Quinta recently (they were 1-8 in their previous nine matchups), they didn't let the past get in their way on Tuesday. Palm Desert had just enough and edged La Quinta out 39-36. The victory made it back-to-back wins for Palm Desert.
Palm Desert can attribute much of their success to Ava Tethal, who scored 17 points along with six rebounds, and Katelyn Gallagher, who dropped a double-double on 15 points and 11 steals. That makes it 16 consecutive games in which Gallagher has scored at least a third of Palm Desert's points.
Rancho Mirage's defeat was their ninth straight at home, which dropped their record down to 0-18. That rough patch could be blamed on the team's offensive performance across that stretch, as they only averaged 15.8 points per game. As for Palm Desert, they have been performing well recently as they've won six of their last eight matchups, which provided a nice bump to their 12-7 record this season.
Rancho Mirage was taken down by Palm Desert 50-8 when the teams last played on January 9th. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Gallagher, who dropped a double-double on 25 points and 17 steals. Now that Rancho Mirage knows the damage she can cause, will they be able to stop her this time? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
