Taft Preview

On the night of January 5th, things looked pretty gloomy for Shafter. The Generals lost by 15 at home to a Delano team that seemed to be the weakest on the schedule for nearly a month. It was the sixth consecutive Shafter loss, putting the Generals record at 3 and 10, with games against heavy favorites Sierra and BCHS to come. There were positive signs to be sure. The young players were gaining valuable experience and the effort level remained high. Still, the chances of threatening the top teams in the SSL seemed dim. Then, Shafter pulled out a victory against Sierra, followed by a road win over BCHS and suddenly the near future looks much brighter and tonight's game at home against Taft (another 20 point favorite) looks much less daunting. A win against Taft would vault Shafter right into serious contention for the league title.

Game Notes:

- Taft (14-5) comes to town riding a 9 game winning streak.

- Shafter leads the all-time series, which dates back to Shafter's inaugural 1930-31 season, 93-82, but has lost the last four meetings.

- This will be a showdown of the two best pure point guards in the league. Both Cristian Barrios of Shafter and Eric LeClair of Taft make things happen off the dribble.

- Taft has typically played a sag-and-switch man defense against Shafter to clog up driving lanes and force Shafter to make threes.

- Taft forward Blake Emberson is one of the biggest floor-slapping flop artists this side of Durham, NC. He took 36 charges last year and already has 28 this year. That ranks fifth in the nation! This despite the fact that Emberson doesn't seem to play very much. He has played in 13 of their 19 games and is the 8th leading scorer on the team. Last year, Shafter held this latter day Fosbury to just one charge in two games.

Shafter Hail!