Public Schools Win Showdown In O'Town
The seventh annual Showdown in O’Town was held at Orlando Christian Prep Saturday and brought some of Central Florida’s most talented high school basketball players to the court for this Public vs. Private multi-team event.
Bishop Moore Stings Melbourne With Balanced Scoring, Defense
Four Bishop Moore players scored in double-figures, and a solid defensive effort frustrated a young Melbourne High School team, to lead the Hornets to a 61-45 win in the first game of the Showdown in O’Town.
J.P. LaPrade led all scorers with 16 points and grabbed four rebounds. Jess Hartmann had 14 points and three rebounds, Cole Nesworld had 12 points and four assists and Hunter Cattoor had 10 points, seven rebounds, four assists and three steals.
Two assistant coaches from UCF watched Cattoor closely throughout the game.
Emil Abreu, who seemed to be around the ball all night, was also a stat stuffer for the Hornets before fouling out. Abreu had eight points, five rebounds, four assists and four steals.
Leading by five at the end of the first quarter, Bishop Moore went on an 8-2 run in the second quarter to push its lead to 23-12. The Hornets forced live ball turnovers and were more aggressive on the glass than Melbourne. Leading by 19 early in the fourth quarter Melbourne tried to rally, but never got within more than 11 points of Bishop Moore.
Rakeem Gillon led the Bulldogs with 14 points and Max Fiedler had eight points.
Deland Grounds The Eagles
In a game that had nine lead changes, 9A Deland HS took the lead for good late in the third quarter and outlasted 4A The Master's Academy 63-57.
Deland raced out to a 10-2 lead in the first quarter but TMA answered with a 9-0 run and by the end of the quarter it was a two point game. The second and third quarters saw the game go back and forth with nine lead changes before Deland took control.
Still TMA had a chance to even the game up in the final minute but missed several free throws with under a minute remaining.
Brodgie Gordon had a game high 22 points for Deland. Wyatt Hollman had 11 points before fouling out late in the fourth quarter and DeSean Woods added 10 points.
Jose Placer (UMBC) led TMA with 18 points and Connor Doobay added 17.
Oak Ridge Surges Past Lake Highland Prep
In a game with a state championship feel to it, 9A Oak Ridge overcame a ten point deficit when it went on a 17-2 run then hung on to defeat 5A Lake Highland Prep 70-65.
The game was played in front of a SRO crowd. Midway through the fourth quarter the two teams seemed to feed off of the crowd’s energy trading three-point field goals like boxers punching and counter punching each other.
With the score 52-47 in favor of Oak Ridge, the three-pointers started splashing down. The Highlanders hit two and the Pioneers sank three to make the score 61-53 with 3:18 to play. Lake Highland Prep never got closer than five points after that.
Antwann Jones (Texas A&M) had a team high 26 points for Oak Ridge, Emmitt Williams -- who told us that he is down to Oregon, LSU and Florida -- had 16 points off the bench and Robin Perry added 14 points.
Nick Honor (Fordham) had a game high 28 points for Lake Highland Prep, Jasen West had 11 points and Victor Brown added 10.
Lubin FTW
On the games decisive play, Apopka’s Rodney Lubin took the inbounds pass and hit a corner three with 2.5 seconds to play to give the Blue Darters a 63-60 win over host Orlando Christian Prep in the final game of the annual Showdown in O-Town.
Apopka started the game on an 8-0 run and led until OCP took a 43-41 lead on a dunk by five-star forward Nassir Little (North Carolina) late in the third quarter.
"We have felt all year long that we've been our own worst enemy because we haven't handled adversity well," said Apopka head coach Scott Williams. "Tonight when they made their runs we finally kind of showed the kind of resolve that we think we need to have if we're going to be the kind of team playing in February."
Lubin led Apopka with 25 points, Nathan Louis had 15 and Zach Anderson added nine.
"I'm so happy for Rodney (Lubin) a guy that puts in a lot of work and keeps getting better and better. The young kids, Zach Anderson and John Lattimer gave us some stability tonight in ways that they can do. I love our kids. We have the right kids here and they want to get better everyday."
Apopka’s win meant that the Public Schools won this year’s ‘Showdown’ 3-1 over the Private Schools.
Little had a game high 27 points for OCP, Ronaldo Segu (Buffalo) had 11 points and Dejuan Lockett added 9.
During pregame warm ups we noticed OCP four-star forward C.J. Walker on the bench in street clothes. He told us that he just returned to Florida following a family situation and would not be playing in the game.