Dobson has enjoyed the comforts of home their last three games, but now they'll head out on the road. The Dobson Mustangs and the Mesquite Wildcats will round out the year against one another at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday at. Hopefully Dobson focused on turnovers this week since the team gave up 15 on Tuesday.
Last Tuesday, Dobson was within striking distance but couldn't close the gap as they fell 55-50 to Mesa. While losing is never fun, Dobson can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' Arizona basketball rankings (they are ranked 114th, while Mesa is ranked 34th).
Dobson's loss came about despite a quality game from Donovan Beard, who scored 21 points. The contest was Beard's 12th in a row with at least ten points. Anthony Bolton was another key contributor, scoring seven points.
Meanwhile, Mesquite came tearing into last Friday's contest with four straight wins (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 17.8 points) and they left with even more momentum. They came out on top against Campo Verde by a score of 68-57. Having run the score up that high, both teams probably have some extra defensive drills coming up.
Christian Garven was his usual excellent self, scoring 24 points. That makes it three consecutive games in which he has scored at least 25% of Mesquite's points. The team also got some help courtesy of Desean Middlebrook, who scored 12 points along with nine rebounds.
Dobson's loss was their third straight at home, which bumped their record down to 6-6. As for Mesquite, they have been performing incredibly well recently as they've won six of their last seven contests, which provided a nice bump to their 9-2 record this season.
Keep an eye on the arc in Tuesday's match: Dobson have made nailing deep shots look easy this year this season, having only averaged 6.1 threes per game. It's a different story for Mesquite, though, as they've been averaging only 5.7 threes per game. Given Dobson's sizeable advantage in that area, Mesquite will need to find a way to close that gap.
Dobson beat Mesquite 55-43 in their previous matchup back in December of 2018. Does Dobson have another victory up their sleeve, or will Mesquite turn the tables on them? We'll have the answer soon enough.
