Basketball Recap: Make It Eight in a Row for Whitharral

Whitharral had already won seven in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 42.9 points) and they went ahead and made it eight on Friday. They blew past the Wellman-Union Wildcats 59-16. The Panthers have made a habit of sweeping their opponents off the court, having now won 16 matchups by 26 points or more this season.

Whitharral was led to victory by Paige Smith and Rylee Kristinek. Smith went 8 for 17 on her way to 26 points in addition to six steals and five rebounds, while Kristinek went 8 of 13 en route to 23 points and eight boards. That makes it 23 consecutive games in which Smith has scored at least a third of Whitharral's points. The team also got some help courtesy of Sheridan Neal, who posted three points and six steals.

Whitharral smashed the offensive glass and finished the game with ten offensive boards. That's a new trend for them: they were averaging 8.1 offensive rebounds per game earlier this season, but in their last 15 games they've averaged 8.3.

Whitharral has been performing incredibly well recently as they've won ten of their last 11 contests, which provided a nice bump to their 19-7 record this season. Those victories came thanks to their defensive effort, having only surrendered 23.7 points per game. As for Wellman-Union, this is the second loss in a row for them and nudges their season record down to 13-11.

Whitharral has already played their next matchup, a 73-14 victory against Amherst on the 28th. As for Wellman-Union, they also didn't take long to hit the court again: they've already played their next game, a 33-28 loss against Anton on the 28th.