Basketball Preview: Friday’s Games

Down The Stretch
It’s the halfway point in the conference season and the Packers sit atop the Gold in girls and boys while Kent City controls both houses of the Silver.
In girls play the Cards of BR are lingering a game behind Fremont and CM’s Hornets rest a game back of the Pack  in boys. In the Silver both Morley teams hold second with each losing their lone conference game to the Eagles. 

By The Way...
35 years ago the Lions won back to back state championships and Friday there will be a ceremony to honor the team that slapped those two banners up as they blasted through some rugged competition to bring home a pair of state titles.
Side note: The first year they defeated Pewamo Westphalia in the finals. The Pirates are likely pretty familiar to Newaygo Supe and Fowler grad Peg Mathis. 


Girls

Chippewa Hills (0-7, 2-10) at Newaygo (3-3, 7-4)
The Warriors are having a dreadful season. They’ve lost 9 in a row and haven’t been close in any of them. The streak started with a 30 point loss to the Lions on the Warrior home court and the prospects of CH ending the streak in the Lion's Den are not rosy.
Newaygo has won 3 in a row and are honing their offense with an eye to the postseason. With a celebratory atmosphere in the home gym win number 4 will be the icing on the cake.
 
Reed City (2-4, 2-8) at Fremont (7-0, 8-4)
Their 6 game winning streak was brought to a halt by the D1 Red Hawks Tuesday but the Pack was in this one to the buzzer. The Coyotes are another struggling team but outside of a couple of blowouts they’ve hung  in against most teams. Fremont hung a 15 point loss on them on the RC floor and with 4 rugged games ahead of them the Packers will look to take care of business early in this one.

Central Montcalm (4-3, 8-4) at Grant (3-4, 3-9)
The Hornets have righted the ship after a 3 game losing streak and they are eager to avenge their 2 point loss at home to the Tigers.
Grant has only won once since the calendar changed and that was over a CH team that everyone has triumphed over. The Tigers are at home but they are just 1-4 on their floor and will need to regenerate some offense to make it a season sweep over a surging CM team who still want a shot at a repeat title. 

Kent City (5-0, 12-1) at White Cloud (3-2, 7-5)
During the first game between these two teams and the Cloud defense kept it close in the first half before the Eagles started raining triples to pull away.
WC has beaten some good teams but this is a really, really good team who are playing at home for just the 4th time this season and their only blemish on their record was a narrow loss to the D1 powerhouse Big Reds on the road. Not saying the Cloud couldn’t pull off an upset but it would certainly be an upset.

Holton (0-5, 2-9) at Hesperia (2-2, 5-6)
The Devs battled a pretty good Walkerville squad on Tuesday before falling short. The team is improving but so are the Panthers who have won 4 out of 5. Emily Bayle has been a scoring machine of late and Emmi Tinkham has been outstanding in the paint for Hesperia. Tuesday they won their first game at home and in this rivalry game they will look to give their fans number 2. 

Boys

Chippewa Hills (1-6, 2-7) at Newaygo (2-4, 3-7)
The Lions pasted CH early in the season. Each team has won  twice since then.
Newaygo possesses more offense and the Warriors tend to yield a lot of points.

Reed City (2-4, 2-9) at Fremont (7-0, 10-1) 
Wow, didn’t see the loss to Whitehall coming but there were a couple of close calls at home against the Lions and Tigers before the Packer season long win streak got halted at 9. The Coyotes don’t have the same bite as those teams or the Vikes and Fremont vanquished them on the road by nearly 30 points with the bench getting ample playing time. RC has likely improved since then but probably not enough to keep this one close. 

Central Montcalm (6-1, 7-2) at Grant (5-2, 5-6)
This should be a good one. The Hornets are on a roll with 4 in a row while the Tigers have won 4 of 5 with an average margin of over 25 points a game in those wins. 
I’m not sure about the Hornets but the Tigers are a much better team than the one who lost an early season game by a bucket in Stanton.
And they have Carter Chase.
 
White Cloud (2-3, 4-6) at Kent City (5-0, 7-3)
Coach Jones was disappointed in the Cloud’s effort against the Warriors Tuesday “Out worked, out hustled.Just got out played.”
Well, the Eagles are better than CH and have beaten three pretty tough squads in a row. Should WC fail to put their best game on the floor in could ugly at the Aerie.

Holton (3-2, 7-4) at Hesperia (0-4, 0-11)
Hesperia will give it all they have but The Red Devils are a deeper team that has put together a strong season already. They have been known to put up more points in a quarter than the Panthers do in most games so this is likely a mismatch with the Holton bench getting some significant time on the floor.

Ken DeLaat, N3 Sports
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