On Tuesday night, the Springstead Eagles (3-3) downed the Nature Coast Tech Sharks (2-1) by a commanding score of 54-35 at Greg O’Connell Court. The way the game began, it did not look promising for the home team. If anything, it appeared the visitors might run away with the contest, but the Eagles did not let that happen. Springstead Head Coach Matt McGarry was pleased with how his squad trusted the process, which allowed them to flip the script just before the break and continue dominating throughout the second half.
“I’m really proud that they stayed the course,” Coach McGarry said. “This group right now is still trying to find a way on how to piece things together and learn how to win. So, the fact that they kind of dug in deep, executed the game plan, hopefully, those are building blocks that we can continue to move moving forward because I think this team’s good enough to win, but we got to commit to something.”
The first quarter started well enough for the home team. A Junior F Zion McKenzie steal led to the game’s opening points and Senior G Niko Cordello knocked down a three under a minute and a half into the contest. After gaining the 5-0 advantage, the Sharks proceeded to outscore the Eagles 17-2 until late in the half. Junior SG Jeremy Gonzalez was responsible for eight of Nature Coast’s points thanks to a pair of threes. The Sharks firmly held the momentum with a 10-point lead and the home team struggling, but that changed in a hurry. Despite their offensive struggles, Springstead’s defense locked in and limited the Sharks offense to a single point through the final 5:54 of the second frame.
“When we finally started locking in defensively late in that second quarter, that really changed everything for us,” the Eagles coach said. “We can get going defensively and really get this going in transition offense. Any time we can get easy baskets, we’ll take easy baskets. That just sets up an opportunity to execute when it’s time to slow things down, but it all starts with defense for us.”
With the visitors’ offense sufficiently stymied, the home team’s offense came to life with 3:19 remaining before the intermission. Coach McGarry and company did not look back as they outscored their opponent 12-1 heading into halftime. Senior G Austin Nicholson led the offensive revival with eight of his 16 total points over this span by way of a trio of layups.
The onslaught continued in the second half with nine straight points for the home team. The 21-1 scoring run turned a 10-point deficit into a 10-point lead across 7:30 of game time. Springstead’s defense consistently forced the Sharks into difficult shooting situations and only allowed 18 points from the early second quarter onward. McKenzie made key contributions with his rebounding as well. Midway through the third period, the junior corralled three of his seven rebounds, which he directly parlayed into four points (of his 11) to help push the lead back out to nine. Nicholson and Cordello also logged 7 and 8 rebounds, respectively, en route to a 47-18 scoring run to put the game comfortably out of reach.
Looking ahead to the next matchups, Nature Coast will face off against the Lecanto Panthers on Friday. Head Coach David Pisarcik and the Sharks will look to get back on track at home against the Panthers at 7:30. The Eagles will travel to take on the Citrus Hurricanes on Wednesday. The Spring Hill-based squad will continue to work on both sides of the ball to put together a more complete performance.
“We still need to be a little bit fine-tuned defensively,” Coach McGarry said. “We could be a little better. Offensively, these guys just need to trust each other, trust what we’re trying to do, and we can go as far as we want to go.”
