Winter Park Wildcats, Edgewater Eagles stumble

The Wildcats looked to be turning a corner when they trounced Ocoee in their only blowout win this season on Jan. 19. But the muted joy of that night under the glow of a scoreboard reading 65-47 didn’t last long; not as long as the losing streaks that preceded or followed that very big W.

Winter Park returned to the court against district rival University for the third time the next day, and lost for the third time this season to the Cougars, this time 61-55.

And with a 56-51 loss to East River on Monday, they became the only team in Class 8A District 5 that hasn’t beaten anybody in the district.

For the perennially dramatic Wildcats, their 5-16 season so far has been excruciating by numbers alone. Despite their seemingly wildly lopsided record, those games have only been separated by an average of four points. Of the Wildcats’ seven recent losses, five have been two shots away from a win.

They faced an almost undefeated Lake Brantley (17-3, 9-1) Wednesday night at press time, and will hit the road for their next two games. At 7:30 p.m. Friday they’ll travel to face Apopka (8-12, 2-5) for the first time this season. Tuesday they’ll be at Olympia (12-6, 5-0), tipping off at 7:30 p.m.

Edgewater

The Eagles felt something unusual for them on Jan. 19: defeat. Edgewater (14-6, 7-0) had just beaten Pine Ridge 57-51 to maintain an undefeated district record before they faced Apopka.

Against the Blue Darters, the Eagles were seemingly a different team, allowing Apopka to spread the ball around with four players in double digits in scoring, and allowing the ball to be stolen 10 times in the game while giving up an additional 13 turnovers.

The Eagles have a flurry of games left to end the season. They played two back-to-back games at press time, including their last district match up against Mainland. They’ll finish things off starting with a home game against a struggling Merritt Island Christian at 7 p.m. Thursday. The next night at 7:30 p.m. they’ll face a tough Dr. Phillips team (16-5, 3-0) that’s coming off two recent home games against Georgia teams.