The River Bluff Gators will face off against the Aiken Fighting Green Hornets at 5:00 p.m. on Friday. The two teams are sauntering into the matchup backed by comfortable wins in their prior games.
River Bluff can't be too worried about heading out to take on Aiken: they just beat Lakeside at home, who had been dominant on their own court up to that point. River Bluff blew past Lakeside 3-0 on Tuesday. The game marked the Gators' most dominant win of the season so far.
After all that action, the final score was 25-13, 25-15, 25-21.
Masyn Mcclanahan was the offensive standout of the contest as she had six aces and five digs. That's the most aces she has posted since back in October of 2023.
River Bluff was lethal from the service line and finished the game with 20 aces. They are a perfect 4-0 when they serve more than ten aces.
Meanwhile, Aiken had already won two in a row, and they went ahead and made it three on Tuesday. They were the clear victor by a 3-0 margin over the Yellow Jackets. While the Fighting Green Hornets didn't have the best season last year (they finished 15-24-2), it's starting to look like those struggles are a thing of the past.
The 3-0 score doesn't really reflect how close the match was: every set was decided by three points or less. The final score came out to 25-23, 25-23, 33-31.
Aiken relied on the efforts of Caroline Smith, who had five digs and four aces, and Abigail Tyler, who had 20 kills, five digs, and three aces. Tyler is on a roll when it comes to kills, as she's now had eight or more in the last three games she's played dating back to last season.
River Bluff has been performing well recently as they've won ten of their last 12 matches, which provided a nice bump to their 15-4 record this season. As for Aiken, their victory bumped their record up to 7-2.
Here's a few offensive stats to keep an eye on ahead of Friday's matchup: River Bluff has serving mastered this season, having averaged 7.6 aces per game. However, it's not like Aiken struggles in that department as they've been averaging 9.8. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
River Bluff was able to grind out a solid win over Aiken in their previous matchup back in September of 2019, winning 2-0. The rematch might be a little tougher for River Bluff since the squad won't have the home-court advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
