The Carlisle Chiefs will take on the McMichael Phoenix in a holiday battle at 6:00 p.m. on Friday at. Carlisle knows how to get points on the board -- the team has finished with flashy point totals in its past seven contests -- so hopefully McMichael likes a good challenge.
Even though Central Carolina Prep scored an imposing 68 points on Saturday, Carlisle still came out on top. Carlisle walked away with a 79-68 victory over Central Carolina Prep. Given Carlisle's advantage in MaxPreps's basketball rankings in their respective home states (they are ranked 43rd in Virginia, while Central Carolina Prep is ranked 202nd in North Carolina), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Carlisle can attribute much of their success to Branson Leduc-Mattox, who scored 24 points along with seven rebounds and six assists, and Trey Beamer, who scored 36 points along with eight rebounds. That makes it three consecutive games in which Leduc-Mattox has scored at least 25% of Carlisle's points. The team also got some help courtesy of Micah Gunter, who scored 12 points along with six rebounds.
Meanwhile, it was a hard-fought game, but McMichael had to settle for a 52-49 loss against T.W. Andrews on Friday. The defeat unfortunately continues a disappointing trend for McMichael in their matchups with T.W. Andrews: they've now lost six in a row.
Carlisle has been performing incredibly well recently as they've won six of their last seven games, which provided a nice bump to their 7-5 record this season. As for McMichael, their loss dropped their record down to 3-6.
Carlisle and McMichael were neck-and-neck when the teams last played back in December of 2022, but Carlisle came up empty-handed after a 84-83 defeat. Can Carlisle avenge their loss or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.
