ENGLEWOOD — Lemon Bay opened up a comfortable first quarter lead and cruised past Clewiston, 55-41, in a District 4A-12 basketball quarterfinal Tuesday night.
The Manta Rays scored the first 9 points of the game and led 16-4 at the end of the first period. The margin was 29-16 at halftime as the Tigers settled in and played Lemon Bay on even terms for most of the second quarter.
“We had a pretty good game plan against them. We had a lot of information about them,” Mantas coach John Flynn said. “It’s never super clean for us, it’s always a little messy, so we’ll take it and we’ll move on. I wasn’t super crazy about some execution and some things like that but again, it’s the way we’ve been all year.
“Sometimes it looks really, really good and sometimes it’s a little messy.”
The Tigers employed a pressing, trapping defense and cut the lead to single digits a couple of times in the second half, but the Mantas had the answer each time. Clewiston’s Isaiah Green poured in 19 points in the second half after going scoreless in the first two quarters to keep the Tigers in the contest.
“They kept fighting the whole night,” said Lemon Bay senior Cooper Benedict. “They’ve got guys who just keep shooting up and down the court. No matter how big the lead is, you’re going to get pressure. So with that, you’ve got to make sure you get the ball in and advance it safely.
“We had a few turnovers that could have caused an issue, but our defense was strong all night.”
With the game safely in hand, Lemon Bay went to a four corners offense to run out the clock.
“When it got to the six-minute point we just started stalling,” Benedict said. “Just trying to get away, any shape or form. As long as we got the ‘W’ that’s all that matters.”
Elias Gambrell led the Mantas with 13 points and 9 rebounds. Cody Mayes also reached double figures with 10. Flynn kept his five starters in for most of the first half, but substituted more freely in the second half.
“We started rolling some guys through in the second half because they were just getting tired,” Flynn said. “When you’re running with those two super fast guards Clewiston has, we had to run some guys in. But that was the plan in the first half to stick with those guys and I’m glad we did. It all worked out good.”
The Mantas spread the production around, as nine players got in the scoring column. Amry Wells had 8 points, Kaden Keir had 7, while Benedict scored 6 points and also hauled in 9 rebounds.
“I was struggling to hit a shot, but I was able to get Elias and a bunch of other guys involved down low,” Benedict said. “It felt good to get a good win and come back Thursday.”
Lemon Bay (11-14) will travel to Estero for a semifinal matchup on Thursday night.
“We’ll take it and we’ll move on. It’s one and done now so we’ll move on to Thursday,” Flynn said. “We’ll go back to practice tomorrow and put something together for them.”
BOYS TENNISLemon Bay 6, Lake Placid 1: At Englewood, the Mantas opened their regular season with a rout of the visiting Dragons.
The Mantas’ lone loss came at No. 1 singles, where Hunter Andres was edged Parker Torella. The Dragons sophomore took the first set 6-4, but Andres rallied back to take the second set 7-6 with a 7-1 tiebreak. In the match tiebreaker, Torella outlasted Andres, 11-9.
Freshman Nil Rubland made his Lemon Bay debut a good one, winning his No. 2 singles match, 6-0, 6-2. Junior Logan McGinty won No. 3 singles for Lemon Bay, 6-0, 6-0.
Rubland and fellow freshman Brener Hitt played No. 1 doubles, leading Lemon Bay to an 8-4 win. The rest of the matches were forfeits.
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