The Tanque Verde Hawks will face off against the Northwest Christian Crusaders at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday. The two teams are sauntering into the matchup backed by comfortable wins in their prior games.
Last Tuesday, everything went Tanque Verde's way against Ganado as Tanque Verde made off with a 3-0 win. The victory made it back-to-back wins for the Hawks.
Tanque Verde not only won, but also showed off some consistency: they kept Ganado between 14 and 17 points across their sets. The match finished with set scores of 25-14, 25-17, 25-15.
Tanque Verde can attribute much of their success to Alexia Adams, who had 18 digs and six aces, and Elise Mansour, who had ten digs and five aces. That's the most aces Mansour has posted since back in September.
Tanque Verde was lethal from the service line and finished the game with 17 aces. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now served at least 15 aces in three consecutive contests.
Meanwhile, Northwest Christian entered their tilt with San Tan Foothills last Wednesday with two consecutive wins but they'll enter their next game with three. They were the clear victor by a 3-0 margin over the Sabercats.
The 3-0 score doesn't show just how dominant Northwest Christian was: they took every set by at least 13 points. Once all was said and done, the final score wound up at 25-9, 25-5, 25-12.
Northwest Christian had a senior duo take command as Ryleigh Desch had seven aces and three digs and Maggie Whittemore had seven digs and four aces. Those seven aces set a new season-high mark for Desch.
Northwest Christian is on a roll lately: they've won 14 of their last 15 matchups, which provided a nice bump to their 19-6 record this season. As for Tanque Verde, their victory bumped their record up to 18-12.
Here's a few offensive stats to keep an eye on ahead of Saturday's game: Tanque Verde has really dialed in their serving this season, having averaged 12.8 aces per game. However, it's not like Northwest Christian struggles in that department as they've been averaging 10.6. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
Tanque Verde might still be hurting after the 3-0 defeat they got from Northwest Christian in their previous meeting back in November of 2022. Can Tanque Verde avenge their loss or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
