
By Kyle LoJacono
After winning their last two games by a combined 11 points, the Land O’ Lakes High girls basketball team defeated Mitchell High 54-17 Feb. 10 in the Class 4A regional quarterfinals.
The 37-point victory illustrates how far the Gators (23-2) have come from the team that went 4-12 last year.
Since then, Laurie Fitzpatrick became the coach, and starters Shanel Sweet and Simone Brown transferred in from Gaither and Wesley Chapel high schools respectively. The squad won a district championship the week before and then regional quarterfinals at home.
“It’s overwhelming,” Sweet said. “I’ve never gotten this far, so to get this far with this team in my first year being here, it’s overwhelming. I can’t be any prouder of my team.”
Land O’ Lakes had to adjust to each other and work through several injuries to starters to begin the season.
“It was hard at first to build chemistry, but once we got going we came together as one and now we play so well with each other,” said Nicole Woodard, who has been on the Gators squad for four years.
In the quarterfinals, the Gators held the Mustangs (15-13) to just five first-half points and forced a running clock in the fourth after gaining a 35-point margin.
“I didn’t expect that,” Fitzpatrick said of having a running clock in the fourth. “I thought it would be a lot closer.”
Fitzpatrick said her team was not pushed much during the regular season, winning by an average of 22.8 points per contest.
“It’s taken us up to now just to be conditioned because we haven’t played a lot of really good teams until districts,” Fitzpatrick said. “We were a little shocked at districts and we tend to play to the other team’s ability, so tonight I told them to come out and play hard.”
On offense, the Gators had three score in double digits, including Sweet’s team-high 15. Brown put up 14 and senior Julia Della Penna added 10.
“From the start of the game we knew we had to come out fighting hard,” said Sweet, a point guard. “We did. We clicked as a team. Our offense was on point tonight.”
The Gators defense forced 30 turnovers and allowed Mitchell to score on only 13 percent of its possessions. Woodard pulled down a team-high 13 rebounds while adding seven steals and six blocks.
“I was so nervous before this game and I’m going to be so nervous next week,” Woodard said. “I want to go as far as I can my senior year and go out on top.”
It was not all smiles in the game for Land O’ Lakes. Sweet re-injured a sprained thumb shooting just after the start of the second quarter. She went to the locker room to get it taped, but came back to score 10 of her 15 points after the injury.
The Gators will now host Gulf High at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 15. The two teams did not play this season, but Fitzpatrick said she knew they would have to go through the Buccaneers at some point.
“We’ve been waiting to play Gulf,” Fitzpatrick said. “I’m looking forward to Gulf because I want to beat them so bad.”
Wildcats advance to semis
The Academy at the Lakes girls basketball team’s remarkable turnaround season continues after the squad defeated Sarasota Christian 40-34 in the 1A regional quarterfinals Feb. 10.
The Wildcats (15-4) went 0-15 last year, but Karim Nohra was hired as their coach, and his press defense has them two games from the state tournament. Andrea Mauger had a team-high 15 points, while eighth-grader Marjorie Rivera added eight.
The academy will next at Naples First Baptist Academy at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 15.
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