SPRING HILL – The Eagles are headed to the district championship! The Springstead Eagles (20-5) vanquished the Vanguard Knights (9-9) 53-41 in the 5A District 5 girls basketball semifinal on Thursday night. The Red, White, and Blue jumped out to a large lead early before sealing the victory late at Greg O’Connell Court.
“Huge way to come out the gate, taking advantage of that home court that we earned,” Eagles Head Coach Zach Anspach said. “We did a great job. I reminded them at half. I said, ‘guys, teams are playing for their season right now.’ Everybody is going to fight […] Overall, it was a pretty good game.”
The home team got off to a hot start outscoring Vanguard by a 15-4 margin over the first five and half minutes of game time thanks in large part to 8 points from Junior Addisson Osborne. The Eagles would continue to gradually build their lead throughout the second frame, outscoring their opponent 19-12 in the process.
Coming out of the intermission, it appeared that Springstead would run away with the semifinal matchup. Willoughby and Junior J’Ziyah Munford each drained a shot from downtown in the first 2:02 of the third to take a commanding 22-point lead.
Then, the home team’s hot start cooled. For the next nine minutes and seven seconds, the Eagles failed to score while the visitors clawed their way back into the game with 11 straight points.
“We had to finish,” Springstead’s coach said. “They made a run, and I knew they were going to make a run. So, we made some adjustments and did some things. We have a really deep bench. We had a lot of bench players step up tonight again as always […] We had some segments where we got sloppy and kind of got some kind of mishaps that we should not have done.”
Things were beginning to get tense before Senior Emily Brown broke the ice and delivered a dagger three from the corner to extend Springstead’s lead back out to 14 points. Though there were still nearly five minutes left on the clock, Brown’s bucket reignited the home team.
The Red, White, and Blue would go on to score 13 points from four different players in the second half of the final frame. Though they would be outscored 19-13 over the final 8 minutes, their output was more than enough to fend off the tenacious Knights.
Coach Anspach and company are now 9-1 over their last 10 games as they head into their district final showdown with top seed Leesburg. The Eagles will travel to take on the Yellow Jackets (11-9) at 3:30 on Saturday.
“It is just win and advance,” Coach Anspach added. “We are just excited to move on to the district tournament. We are trying to make a bid for states.”
