North Johnston is on a five-game streak of home losses, Princeton a four-game streak of away losses, but someone's luck will change on Friday. The North Johnston Panthers will host the Princeton Bulldogs at 7:30 p.m. Given that the two teams suffered a loss in their last games, they both have a little extra motivation heading into this game.
It was a proper cat-fight when North Johnston duked it out with Goldsboro on Wednesday. North Johnston fell 62-50 to Goldsboro. While losing is never fun, the Panthers can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' North Carolina basketball rankings (they are ranked 553rd, while the Cougars are ranked 234th).
Meanwhile, Princeton was within striking distance but couldn't close the gap on Thursday as they fell 71-67 to Beddingfield. Despite running the score up even higher than they did in their prior game on Friday (59), the Bulldogs still had to take the loss.
North Johnston will need to focus on slowing down Garrett Lane, one of several Princeton players who made an impact when they last played. He went 7-for-12 en route to 19 points. Evan Pate was another key player, going 6-for-12 to rack up 18 points and eight rebounds.
Even though they lost, Princeton smashed the offensive glass and finished the game with 15 offensive rebounds. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now pulled down at least ten offensive boards in seven consecutive matches.
North Johnston's defeat dropped their record down to 5-16. As for Princeton, their loss dropped their record down to 6-17.
North Johnston didn't have too much breathing room in their contest against Princeton when the teams last played back in January, but they still walked away with a 48-44 win. Will North Johnston repeat their success, or does Princeton have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
