The Hernando Leopards (11-3) finished strong and pounced over Academy at the Lakes (3-8) to take the 60-41 victory on Friday night at home. The Purple and Gold used strong ends to both halves to put the Wildcats away.
“We woke up a little bit,” Leopards Head Coach Jake Gaustad said. “We came out flat. We got into a little foul trouble early. Our senior, Sam, got into foul trouble. We had to change things up, but we got aggressive. We started to get our wind, got our feet behind us, and started rolling.”
Much of the first quarter was a back-and-forth affair. There were several lead changes early with a trio of Wildcats knocking down treys to take an 11-8 lead with just over three minutes remaining in the opening frame.
Hernando Senior Sam Jackson would log six points to go with a steal and a rebound during this span. Over the next five minutes of game time, the Leopards would go on their first scoring run to create distance between them and the Wildcats.
The home team scored 11 straight off the hands of five different Leopards. After the Wildcats began to put points on the board again, a trio of Hernando treys followed from Junior Daniel Marizalde, Junior Joseph Rivera, and Sophomore Logan McGuire to help put Hernando up 29-19 at the break.
The three athletes had all contributed points during the prior scoring spree as well. In total, Marizalde finished with 8 points, Rivera scored 9, and McGuire notched 9 points. Despite getting into foul trouble himself, Jackson would still finish with one of the most impressive stat sheets on the night especially considering his limited time on the court.
His team-high 14 points and 6 rebounds were tied with Junior Michael Brown, and he tallied three assists and one steal. Brown mirrored those last stats with one assist and three steals.
“Sam’s kind of our motor,” Coach Gaustad continued. “As he gets rolling, the rest of the team follows him. He’s a senior […] He’s a leader in the locker room, a leader on the floor […] Once he got out there, the team kind of looks to him when we get in binds. They look to him. [He] rolls out, he’s aggressive, he gives us everything he’s got.”
After the intermission, the usual suspects continued to help the Leopards build their lead out to a 43-25 advantage before a late third quarter run cut into Hernando’s lead somewhat.
Six straight points from the visitors over the final two minutes of the frame gave the home team a less comfortable 12-point lead. Then, Brown helped put the game away as he scored 9 of his 14 points in the final period.
Jackson also contributed three points (thanks in part to a technical on the Wildcats’ head coach) in a critical stretch of the fourth quarter with under six minutes remaining. Though they were not perfect, they took the win. That seems emblematic of the youth on Coach Gaustad’s squad.
“I think we’ve been growing,” the head coach said. “Week in and week out we’ve gotten better. We’re a younger team [with] a couple seniors. I like where we’re at right now, and I think if we keep growing at this pace, we can be tough.”
