Coming down to the last three minutes of the game, Oviedo was up by 30 points. A breakaway dunk by small forward Caden Douglass in the final three minutes cut into the lead, but not nearly enough as varsity basketball fell to Oviedo 77-50.
“We did not play as a team and we played selfishly,” Douglass said. “We needed to move the ball and not let the environment affect us.”
During the game on Jan.19, Douglass had 16 points, two rebounds, one assist, a steal and a block. Douglass is also the team’s leader in rebounds (8.6), assists (3.9), steals (2.3) and blocks (2.4) per game. Forward Kyle Bailey also made an impact on the game for the team with two points and two rebounds.
Oviedo kept a steady lead throughout the game but not without pressure. The team tried to combat Oviedo’s offense by shutting off two of their main shooters.
“Our main goal was to make sure two of their guys would not beat us and to force the other guys to have to beat us and work hard,” guard Julian Declou said.
Declou had three points, two rebounds, two assists and one block during the game.
Even though this worked during the start of the game, Oviedo realized what was happening and shifted their offense to focus on other players, increasing their lead.
On the offensive side, the start of the game was slow for the team. Oviedo came out with the momentum from the start, forcing Hagerty to play catch up.
“Movement is the main focus of our offense,” Douglass said. “We went into the game with that being our goal but did not follow through.”
This is not the only loss to Oviedo this season. The week prior they lost to Oviedo 79-56.
“These past couple of losses will only fuel us to do better for the rest of our season,” Douglass said.
The team is now 12-7 and has six more regular season games until they host the district playoffs. The next game will be at home on Jan. 23 at 7 p.m.
“We are trying to follow up last year’s district win with another,” Bailey said. “We will just continue to go as far as we can in the playoffs.”
