Freedom and Watauga are an even 5-5 against one another since January of 2020, but not for long. The Freedom Patriots will head out on the road to square off against the Watauga Pioneers at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Freedom 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 131st, while Watauga is ranked tenth).
Last Friday, Freedom came up short against Ashe County and fell 63-53. The loss unfortunately continues a disappointing trend for Freedom in their matchups with Ashe County: they've now lost four in a row.
Meanwhile, Watauga put the finishing touches on their ninth blowout victory of the season on Friday. They put the hurt on Hibriten with a sharp 77-55 win. Having run the score up that high, both teams might be doing some extra defensive drills very soon.
Kate Sears was her usual excellent self, dropping a triple-double on 27 points, 14 rebounds, and ten assists. That makes it ten consecutive games in which she has scored at least a third of Watauga's points. Another player making a difference was Charlotte Torgerson, who scored 19 points.
Freedom's defeat dropped their record down to 12-9. As for Watauga, they pushed their record up to 18-4 with that win, which was their eighth straight at home.
Freedom couldn't quite finish off Watauga in their previous meeting back in January and fell 70-67. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Sears, who dropped a double-double on 28 points and 13 rebounds. Now that Freedom knows the damage she can cause, will they be able to stop her this time? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
