The Junction City Bluejays will head out on the road to challenge the Emporia Spartans at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. Junction City is coming into the match hot, having won their last seven games.
Even though Hayden scored an imposing 58 points on Tuesday, Junction City still came out on top. Junction City enjoyed a cozy 73-58 victory over Hayden. Given Junction City's advantage in MaxPreps' Kansas basketball rankings (they are ranked 11th, while Hayden is ranked 218th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Meanwhile, Emporia came up short against Manhattan on Tuesday and fell 47-36.
Despite their loss, Emporia saw several players rise to the challenge and make noteworthy plays. Cooper Rech, who scored 11 points, was perhaps the best of all. The team also got some help courtesy of Harrison Trelc, who scored nine points along with five rebounds.
Sheldon Stewart, who's played more minutes than anyone else on the Spartans squad sat out for Tuesday's matchup. With Stewart sitting this one out, Trelc got some extra time on the court (30 vs. his season average of 13.19). Trelc made the most of the opportunity, scoring nine points along with five rebounds. A few more games like that and he might be seeing even more time going forward.
Junction City is on a roll lately: they've won nine of their last ten contests, which provided a nice bump to their 16-2 record this season. As for Emporia, their defeat dropped their record down to 11-6.
Junction City didn't have too much breathing room in their contest against Emporia when the teams last played back in January, but they still walked away with a 46-41 win. The rematch might be a little tougher for Junction City since the team won't have the home-court advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
