Awaken Christian has enjoyed the comforts of home their last three games, but now they'll head out on the road. They will take on the Needles Mustangs at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday. Expect the scorekeeper to be kept busy: if their previous games are any indication, the pair will really light up the scoreboard.
Last Saturday, Awaken Christian earned a 63-55 victory over White Pine.
It was another big night for Jaylen Jordan, who scored 27 points along with two steals. Another player making a difference was Abel Sebsebie, who scored 18 points along with five rebounds and three steals.
Meanwhile, Needles put another one in the bag on Tuesday to keep their perfect season alive. They came out on top against Parker by a score of 58-51. Given Needles' advantage in MaxPreps's basketball rankings in their respective home states (they are ranked 19th in California, while Parker is ranked 158th in Arizona), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Multiple players turned in solid performances to lead Needles to victory, but perhaps none more so than Xavier Russell, who dropped a double-double on 13 points and 11 rebounds. Russell has been hot recently, having posted two or more steals the last five times he's played. The team also got some help courtesy of Luca Walema, who dropped a double-double on 15 points and 11 rebounds.
Awaken Christian is on a roll lately: they've won three of their last four contests, which provided a nice bump to their 8-4 record this season. As for Needles, their victory was their 14th straight at home dating back to last season, which pushed their record up to 19-0.
Keep an eye on the arc in Thursday's matchup: Awaken Christian have made nailing deep shots look easy this year this season, having only averaged 4.5 threes per game. It's a different story for Needles, though, as they've been averaging only 5.4 threes per game. Given Awaken Christian's sizeable advantage in that area, Needles will need to find a way to close that gap.
Awaken Christian suffered a grim 72-51 defeat to Needles in their previous meeting back in December of 2023. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Russell, who dropped a double-double on 27 points and 11 steals. Now that Awaken Christian knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.
