Johnsonville is 1-8 against Latta since December of 2016 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Friday. The Johnsonville Flashes will look to defend their home court against the Latta Vikings at 6:15 p.m. After the two teams made easy work of their previous opponents, one won't be so lucky on Friday.
Johnsonville is headed in fresh off scoring the most points they have all season. They claimed a resounding 52-15 win over Hemingway. The team's explosion on offense also rewarded the Flashes with their most commanding win of the season.
Meanwhile, Latta had already won two in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 50.5 points) and they went ahead and made it three on Friday. They blew past the Trojans 58-24. Given the Vikings' advantage in MaxPreps' South Carolina basketball rankings (they are ranked 91st, while the Trojans are ranked 229th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Latta's win came from a few key players Johnsonville will need to keep an eye on. One of the most notable was Jeziyah Page, who went 8 of 14 on her way to 18 points in addition to seven steals and five assists. The dominant performance gave her a new career-high in steals. Kaliya Herman was another key player, dropping a double-double on 17 points and ten assists.
Latta was working as a unit and finished the game with 18 assists. That's a new trend for them: they were averaging 0 assists per game earlier this season, but in their last 15 matchups they've averaged 8.1.
Latta pushed their record up to 11-5 with the victory, which was their fourth straight at home. The wins came thanks to their defensive effort, having only surrendered 21.0 points per game. As for Johnsonville, their win ended a six-game drought at home dating back to last season and bumped them up to 3-6.
Johnsonville took a serious blow against Latta in their previous matchup last Tuesday, falling 73-18. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Herman, who dropped a double-double on 26 points and ten steals. Now that Johnsonville knows the damage she can cause, will they be able to stop her this time? There's only one way to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
