North Salinas and Pajaro Valley are an even 5-5 against one another since December of 2018, but not for long. The North Salinas Vikings will head out on the road to square off against the Pajaro Valley Grizzlies at 7:00 p.m. on Monday. Both teams took a loss in their last game, so they'll have plenty of motivation to get the 'W'.
North Salinas struggled with threes on Tuesday (Soledad had nine more) and sadly the final score reflected it. North Salinas took a 62-49 hit to the loss column at the hands of Soledad. North Salinas was down 51-28 at the end of the third quarter, which was just too much to recover from.
The losing side was boosted by Shane Taylor, who scored 11 points along with five steals. He hasn't dropped below two steals for three straight games. Another player making a difference was Angel Lizaola, who scored ten points.
Meanwhile, Pajaro Valley's recent rough patch got a bit rougher on Thursday after their eighth straight loss. They were beaten by Monte Vista Christian 73-38. While losing is never fun, Pajaro Valley can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' California basketball rankings (they are ranked 1359th, while Monte Vista Christian is ranked 611th).
North Salinas has been struggling recently, as they've lost three of their last four matchups, which put a noticeable dent in their 6-11 record this season. As for Pajaro Valley, they dropped their record down to 2-15 with that loss, which was their sixth straight on the road.
Everything went North Salinas' way against Pajaro Valley in their previous meeting on January 4th as North Salinas made off with a 56-33 win. The rematch might be a little tougher for North Salinas since the team won't have the home-court advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
