Winter Park ends on high note

Winter Park fans had something big to cheer about Saturday night, as they watched their boys basketball team decimate a team that had only lost one game all season.

“They came out and played hard,” Coach David Bailey said.

The Wildcats (19-5) routed Brooksville’s Nature Coast Tech 78-36, dropping the Sharks to 24-2 on the season after they hadn’t lost a game since a week before Christmas.

And the Wildcats’ star forward, Austin Rivers, gave the crowd a show in his final regular season game in Winter Park orange and white. He dropped 25 points into the basket to lead his team to the easy victory.

Helping keep the scoring gap wide were Brett Comer and BillyDee Williams, who each contributed 16 points to the game.

The Wildcats opened up strong, but Nature Coast kept pace early. Only up by 5 points at halftime, the Wildcats went into overdrive to turn a close game into a blowout in the second half. Rivers went wild, upping his tempo to race past defenders on blistering dashes to the basket.

Meanwhile, the Wildcats’ defense clamped down, holding the Sharks to their first-half pace while the Wildcats nearly doubled their own first-half scoring.

With the game, Winter Park added another win to their four-game streak to close the season.

The Class 6A District 4 championships are already under way, but the Wildcats started with a distinct advantage, being the only undefeated team in their district. The championship game starts at 7 p.m. Saturday at East River High School.