The January grind continues for the Columbus Wildcat boys and girls basketball teams with a road trip to New London Thursday. The Wildcat girls are 6-9 on the year, 6-7 in the Southeast Iowa Superconference North Division after a 50-42 win at home over rival Wapello. This season, the Wildcats put up 42 points per game and give up 47 on 27% shooting, 22% from three and 49% at the line with 35 rebounds, 15 steals, 10 assists and 22 turnovers per game. Individual leaders are Kennedy Woepking at 11 points and eight boards per night. Ellie Sanders and Isabel Rendon each average three steals and three assists per game.

New London is winless in 16 tries this year including a 62-10 loss to Mediapolis in their last game. The Tigers average 14 points per night and give up 61 on 15% shooting, 10% from three and 56% at the line with 17 rebounds, six steals, two assists and 24 turnovers per game. Individually, Megan Lee is the leader with five points, five rebounds, two steals and an assist per game. This week, Wildcat head coach Kasey Keltner talked with KCII Sports about his team’s Thursday keys. “New London is playing better from what I have seen. They shoot a lot of threes, and anytime you get hot doing that you can really control a game. I think for us it goes back to the same keys. We need to be full court, in your face defense for 32 minutes. Make sure you are not comfortable. On the offensive side, we need to continue to have the ball movement that we have had. Everyone is getting shot opportunities so keep your confidence and knock them down. If we don’t we’ll go to the offensive glass and try again.”

Columbus has won the last four in this series including 63-30 a season ago.

The Wildcat boys are 7-7 on the year, 6-6 in the Southeast Iowa Superconfernece North after a 61-41 Tuesday loss to Wapello in CJ. This season, the Wildcats score 55 points per game and give up 59 on 36% shooting, 30% from three and 55% at the line with 29 rebounds, 10 assists, seven steals and 13 turnovers per game. Individually, Ellis Hills-Carrier has a team leading 22 points, six rebounds and three assists per game. Drake Marin leads at two steals per night.

New London is 2-15 this season and 1-12 in the Superconference South after falling to Holy Trinity Catholic Tuesday 63-50. The Tigers average 47 points per game and give up 63 on 39% shooting, 28% from three and 48% at the stripe with 27 rebounds, eight assists, six steals and 13 turnovers per game. Individually, Brigham Porter has a team best 11 points and two steals per night. Kye Reighard goes for eight boards per game and Landon Franklin two assists. Columbus head coach Jake Korbakes talked with KCII Sports following the Wildcats loss to Van Buren last week about where his team is looking to improve. “We need to see more moments where we are valuing the basketball and personnel awareness. We have to help ourselves out a little more.”

These teams have split their last six meetings with Columbus winning a season ago 59-49. You can hear all of the action live tonight on AM 1380, FM 102.5, the KCII2 App and KCIIradio.com, beginning with the Area Game of the Week Pregame Show at 5:30p.m., tip of the girls game at six with the boys to follow from New London High School.