NICEVILLE — The lights of Raider Arena seem to have awakened something the Niceville basketball team was missing.
The Eagles entered the Go Southern Beach Blowout basketball tournament with only one victory. That total is up to three after Thursday’s 52-44 tournament semifinal victory against Pace on the Northwest Florida State College campus.
“We’re starting to gel as a team,” Niceville coach Jerome Strutchen said. “Defensively we’re getting better, and that’s the key cause offensively, we’ll figure out how to score.
“In the past we were kinda slacking on defense, but tonight we got four quarters of good hard effort.”
The Eagle’s (3-9) stingy defense held Pace to only 12 first-half points and seven fewer points than its season scoring average of 51 points per game. Wednesday, Niceville overcame a 10-point halftime deficit to beat Fort Walton Beach 50-49. Strutchen said the key to his team’s improvement has been developing trust and communication.
“We just started listening to each other,” Strutchen said. “They communicate with us, and we communicate with them.”
Communication can be hard to come by on a team with only two seniors who have extensive playing experience and an ailing Juanyeh Thomas taking a step back from the team to let an ankle injury suffered during football season heal.
It led to a rocky start. Niceville entered the tournament on an eight-game losing streak. It’s only victory came Dec. 1 against Mosley.
“We’re young,” Strutchen said. “We got four sophomores, four juniors and six seniors … That’s a lot of growth that’s gotta happen. We’re getting there. We told ’em all season, ‘We’re not playing for the first half, we’re playing to get better gradually.’”
If anything, Thursday’s game was a microcosm of sorts for the gradual approach. With each quarter played, Niceville outpaced Pace (4-7), culminating in a 17-9 track meet in the third quarter.
Trey Green-Harris opened the quarter by nailing a 3-pointer. Roland Matthews nailed an elbow jumper on the next possession, and before Pace could respond, Donovan Myers converted on an and-1 opportunity to put the Patriots down 28-14. The 14-point deficit would remain in place for the rest of the quarter.
Up next, Niceville faces off against the winner of the Rutherford-Mountain View game in the tournament championship game at 8:30 p.m. Friday. Given the Eagles are playing in their hometown, Strutchen said he hopes to get a big boost from the home fans and student section.
“We’re hoping we can get some Niceville fans,” Strutchen said. “You kinda understand because of our record, but the guys are playing hard, and it would be good basketball for them to come and watch.
“These guys are turning it around; they would really appreciate a good home crowd, especially our student body because they have always been our sixth man.”
Fort Walton Beach 56, Liberty 51
John Lavin and his Vikings win basketball games the same way a person would devour a whale: one bite at a time.
The Fort Walton Beach coach said he likes to break the game down into two-minute increments. His team needs to win as many as it can.
Down eight at halftime Thursday against Liberty (VA) in the Go Southern Beach Blowout, the Vikings (7-6) needed to win every two-minute period to win. One night after giving away a 10-point halftime lead in a 50-49 loss to Niceville, they did just that.
Fort Walton Beach scored 20 points in the third quarter, doubling its point total from the first half, to cut the Minutemen’s lead to 43-40. Continuing the previous quarter’s scoring flurry, Ernest Riggs and Calvin Payton both finished at the rim on early possession to take a 44-43 lead.
The teams traded baskets for much of the quarter until the Viking defense clamped down. Liberty (1-9) forward Derius Moore’s free throws with two minutes to play were the last Minuteman buckets to find the bottom of the net. Riggs put the game away with a pair of free throws after Moore was called for holding.
“We’re very proud of our kids for the comeback,” Lavin said. “We could have folded down eight at halftime. I though we showed some poise, showed some grit in battling back with the close win.”
Riggs led the Vikings with 20 points. Hudson Robinson was second on the team with 13 points.
Up next, the Vikings will play for the consolation championship against Crestview at 7 p.m. Friday. After allowing the Niceville and Liberty offenses to score at will for stretches during the past two nights, Lavin said he wants to see a better defensive effort Friday.
“We gotta put a priority on defense,” Lavin said. “We want to play fast. We want to get up and down. We stress that, but if we’re going to be successful this year, we have to buy in to defense.”
Crestview 65, Calloway County 48
The Bulldogs won the tip, Devin Voisin splashed home a 3 from the right wing and Crestview hardly looked back in Thursday’s victory at the Go Southern Beach Blowout.
After a 58-44 loss to Mountain View on Wednesday, Crestview coach Greg Watson was pleased with his team’s effort despite some lapses. The Bulldogs took a 33-21 lead into the halftime locker room against the Lakers (KY) thanks in part to a better shooting night and the ability to get the ball inside.
“We still did some things wrong,” Watson said. “But we shot it a little better, which always helps. I thought the second half, our press, which we really talked about at halftime, forced them to make mistakes, not necessarily being so wild and making the game chaotic.”
Watson also said the second-half runs helped the team pull away. The Bulldogs (7-2) opened the final quarter on a 10-0 run to push the lead to 56-39. Voisin hit a jumper from just inside the arc on the quarter’s first possession, then picked up a steal on the inbound before assisting his brother Jaden for another quick lay in.
Jaden Voisin finished with a team-high 18 points.
Up next, the Bulldogs play Fort Walton Beach in the consolation championship at 7 p.m. Friday. Against a conference opponent, Watson said he and the team will focus on improving overall and limiting the cold streaks that plagued the team for stretches Wednesday and in the third quarter Thursday, where Calloway County (3-3) outscored the Bulldogs 17-13.
“All year, we’ve kinda been a roller-coaster type team throughout single games, where we’ll have two or three minutes of playing good, and we’ll have two or three minutes of playing ugly,” Watson said.
“I don’t know what’s causing that right now, but if we can get that fixed, we’ve got a chance to be pretty good.”