The St. Francis Red Raiders will challenge The Park School of Buffalo Pioneers at 7:45 p.m. on Thursday. Expect the scorekeeper to be kept busy: if their previous games are any indication, the two teams will really light up the scoreboard.
Last Monday, St. Francis came up short against Nichols and fell 69-61. The Red Raiders haven't had much luck with the Vikings recently, as the team has come up short the last four times they've met.
St. Francis' defeat came about despite a quality game from Andrew Lindstrom, who posted 22 points. Evan Noecker was another key player, putting up five points and three steals.
Meanwhile, The Park School of Buffalo entered their tilt with West Seneca East on Tuesday with two consecutive wins , and they'll enter their next game with three. They strolled past the Trojans with points to spare, taking the game 70-52.
The Park School of Buffalo's win came from a few key players St. Francis will need to keep an eye on. One of the most notable was Kamron Barge, who went 6-for-8 on his way to 16 points. The dominant performance also gave him a new career-high in shooting accuracy (75%). Another player making a difference was Jake Stuckey, who went 8-for-11 en route to 18 points and five rebounds.
The Park School of Buffalo was working as a unit and finished the game with 18 assists. They racked up eight more assists than West Seneca East's also-impressive total of ten.
The victory got The Park School of Buffalo back to even at 12-12. As for St. Francis, their loss dropped their record down to 9-14.
Some high-performance offense is likely on the agenda as the two teams are some of the highest-scoring teams around. St. Francis hasn't had any problem running up the score this season, having averaged 59.2 points per game. However, it's not like The Park School of Buffalo struggles in that department as they've been averaging 56.3 points. With both teams so easily able to put up points, the only question left is who can put up more.
St. Francis came up short against The Park School of Buffalo in their previous meeting back in January, falling 76-69. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of The Park School of Buffalo's Elijah Greene, who shot 5-for-7 from deep and dropped a double-double with 26 points and 12 boards. Now that St. Francis knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.
