With Christmas break fast approaching and serving as something of a halfway point for the winter sports season, two teams from Springstead should feel particularly good about their present and future.
In boys soccer, the Eagles took the short trip to Brooksville to face Hernando on Dec. 10 and rolled to an 8-0 victory. That improved their record on the season to a perfect 9-0.
Raul Maldonado scored three goals and added an assist for seven points. Freshman Tyler Siebe scored twice, while Douglas Kelly had a goal and two assists. Christian Gies added a goal and one assist, and Kaiden Levassuer also had a goal.
The senior Maldonado leads the team with 13 goals on the season. Gies is second with eight and is tied with Kelly for the team-high of five assists. The Eagles have outscored their opponents by an astounding 49-5.
Meanwhile, in girls’ basketball, the Eagles posted two dominant victories over county rivals last week, 50-18 over Nature Coast on Tuesday and 51-5 against Central on Friday. Their record now stands at 8-1, with the one loss coming in the season-opener on Nov. 18 against West Port, 61-32.
Since then, the Eagles have taken care of business, mostly in blowout fashion. Against the Bears, Ariana Willoughby had 13 points, five rebounds, three assists and six steals. The freshman has been a difference-maker, averaging team highs of 11.7 points, 4.2 assists and 2.6 steals, as well as second-best on the team of 5.3 rebounds. She additionally has knocked down a team-leading 20 3-pointers.
The Nature Coast girls’ soccer team has gotten off to a hot start of its own but cooled off a bit last week, dropping two out of three matches for an 8-3 mark overall.
A 2-1 defeat on Dec. 10 at Lecanto ended a seven-game winning streak in which the Sharks had outscored their opponents by a combined 46-1. The Panthers, who are 8-1-1 on the season, scored twice in the second half to pull out the win.
After getting back on track with a 4-1 win over Hernando on Dec. 11, with Giada Chechile scoring three goals and assisting on another, Nature Coast got blanked 8-0 by unbeaten Steinbrenner (9-0-1) last Thursday.
Chechile has been outstanding, as the junior has already scored 25 goals and added 13 assists for 63 points. The next closest on the team is Hayden Bleser with 10 goals and four assists for 24 points. Junior keeper Kennedy Rasmussen has 80 saves and six shutouts, allowing just 16 goals in 11 games.
The Springstead girls are 6-5 following a 5-1 win over Hernando on Dec. 9 and an 8-0 loss to Cypress Creek last Thursday. Central boys soccer improved to 5-5 with wins over Crystal River on Thursday, 4-2, and Weeki Wachee on Saturday, 5-0. Nature Coast moved to 5-6 with a 6-2 victory over Lecanto on Dec. 10.
Weeki Wachee is 8-2 in girls’ basketball thanks to three wins last week, 53-38 over Citrus on Dec. 10, then 41-30 over Nature Coast last Thursday and 60-13 against Central on Saturday.
In boys’ basketball, Hernando defeated Central in overtime on Dec. 10, 53-49, to improve to 6-2. Joseph Rivera scored 15 points to pace the Leopards, while Blake Williams added 11 points and nine rebounds. Daniel Merizalde chipped in eight points, five assists and five steals.
Springstead beat Nature Coast on Dec. 10, 54-47, getting 18 points, six rebounds and five steals from Zion McKenzie, and 14 points and four assists out of Ryan Sayre. McKenzie and Jamin Pond both scored 11 points in a 54-34 win over Central on Friday. Both the Eagles and the Bears are now 4-5.
Nature Coast’s boys downed Weeki Wachee on Friday, 80-53, to move to 4-3 overall.
