Rivers leads Wildcats in rout

For four straight quarters there was seemingly nothing Winter Springs could do to stop Austin Rivers. The Winter Park boys basketball star went into overdrive under the Bears' arena lights, burying 41 points into the net on the way to the Wildcats' wild 83-60 blowout in the regional quarterfinal.

“I just get in zones sometimes and everything keeps going in,” Rivers said of his stellar performance.

On Tuesday night at press time, the Wildcats faced a rematch with Edgewater to see if they'd advance to the final round of regional play.

They had plenty of momentum heading into the regional semifinal after their big win over the Bears. Winter Springs had entered the regional tournament after a district championship and hungry for more.

Winter Park was fresh off a devastating loss to Edgewater in the district tournament.

Thursday night Rivers turned it on, mixing aggressive play with aerial gymnastics to bamboozle defenders for most of the game. Only in the first few minutes of the game was he off-tempo. Once he hit a hot streak, he lit up the net for the rest of the night.

In the most prolific eight minutes of his high school career, the Wildcats' star dropped 20 points into the net as he propelled his team forward with a momentum that wouldn't break until the end of the game.

At one point in the third quarter, the Wildcats were up by 26 points, though their scoring would temporarily wane as the Bears managed to close the gap to 14. But that's as close as they would ever come in the second half.

The Wildcats' Adam Jones hit all of his shots on the way to 13 points, and picked up 12 rebounds in the contest to help his team to the big win.