Chapel Hill has been on the road for four straight, but on Friday they'll finally head home. They and the Creekside Seminoles will face off at 6:00 p.m. on February 9th without much rest after finishing up games yesterday. Chapel Hill will have to bring their A-game into this one, as they are staring down a pretty big deficit in the MaxPreps Georgia Rankings (they are ranked 356th, while Creekside is ranked 73rd).
Even though Chapel Hill has not done well against Lithia Springs recently (they were 0-9 in their previous nine matchups), they didn't let the past get in their way on Saturday. Chapel Hill snuck past Lithia Springs with a 50-44 victory.
Chapel Hill found their leader in underclassman Emahni Chambliss, who dropped a double-double on 30 points and 11 rebounds. That makes it ten consecutive games in which Chambliss has scored at least a third of Chapel Hill's points. Bryale Thomas was another key contributor, scoring five points along with nine rebounds.
Meanwhile, Creekside pushed their score all the way to 58 on Saturday, but even that wasn't enough to win. They fell 66-58 to Jackson.
Despite the defeat, Creekside saw an underclassman step up: C?india Dennis scored 25 points along with seven assists and seven rebounds. That was a full 43.1% of Creekside's points, marking the fifth time in a row she's earned more than a third of the team's points. Another player making a difference was Skye Cleveland, who scored 16 points along with three steals.
Chapel Hill's victory bumped their record up to 5-18. As for Creekside, their loss dropped their record down to 15-7.
This contest is one where the number of possessions is likely to be a big factor: Chapel Hill have been smashing the glass this season, having averaged 29.7 rebounds per game. However, it's not like Creekside struggles in that department as they've been averaging 35.3 rebounds per game. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
Chapel Hill was taken down by Creekside 101-25 in their previous meeting last Saturday. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Dennis, who shot 4-for-9 from deep and dropped a triple-double on 37 points, 11 assists, and ten steals. Now that Chapel Hill knows the damage she can cause, will they be able to stop her this time? There's only one way to find out.
