ILTexas Arlington is 0-3 against the Lions since January of 2020 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Monday. The ILTexas Arlington Eagles will head out on the road to take on the Leadership Prep Lions at 6:00 p.m. Both teams are coming into the match red-hot, with ILTexas Arlington sitting on four straight victories and the Lions on three.
It can be hard to translate regular season success to the playoffs, but ILTexas Arlington had no problem doing just that on Wednesday. They took their matchup at home with ease, bagging a 64-24 victory over the Mustangs. ILTexas Arlington's win was all the more impressive since the Mustangs were averaging only 29 points allowed on the season.
ILTexas Arlington found their leader in underclassman Khattab Kanan, who scored 17 points along with six rebounds. It was the first time this season that Kanan scored 15 or more points. The team also got some help courtesy of Erik Castaneda, who scored 12 points along with six rebounds.
Meanwhile, Leadership Prep can now show off three landslide victories after their most recent match on Wednesday. They blew past Uplift Ascend Prep, posting a 71-29 win at home. Given Leadership Prep's advantage in MaxPreps' Texas basketball rankings (they are ranked 350th, while the Eagles are ranked 1113th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
ILTexas Arlington is on a roll lately: they've won nine of their last ten matches, which provided a nice bump to their 17-15 record this season. As for Leadership Prep, their victory was their fourth straight at home dating back to last season, which pushed their record up to 6-4.
Things could have been worse for ILTexas Arlington, but things could have been a whole lot better as they took a 57-43 loss to the Lions in their previous matchup back in November of 2021. Can ILTexas Arlington avenge their defeat or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.
