Red-hot Ocoee girls hoops team hitting its stride -- Observer Preps

OCOEE Coming into the 2016-17 season with high expectations, the Ocoee girls basketball team hit a wall early in the season.

Punctuated by back-to-back losses to Winter Park and district-opponent West Port Nov. 29 and Dec. 1, respectively, the team was in a funk — so it had an intervention of sorts.

And, apparently, it has worked.

The Knights (14-5) have won 11 of their past 12 games since that loss to West Port and are trending up as one of the hottest teams in Central Florida and perhaps the state, at large.

“It’s been amazing since then — I think we have a lot more support, outside of just the coaches this year,” head coach Gina Solano said. “(The girls) know how to keep their composure now. They just play through it when teams make runs — they stay calm, they don’t panic.”

Ocoee’s sole loss of this stretch came in its final game of the Florida Prospects Christmas Invitational Dec. 31 against Wekiva. Since then, though, the Knights have begun the New Year with big wins over rivals such as Olympia, Apopka and Evans — all in the span of one week on the calendar.

“We just realized that we had to get locked in, because we want to win Metros,” senior guard Dynasty Carter said.

Carter is among several talented seniors on the Knights’ roster who were around for the team’s heartbreaking 43-40 loss in the regional quarterfinals to St. Cloud — a game that marked the program’s first postseason appearance since 2007.

This time around, the team appears to be hitting its stride and handling adversity. A come-from-behind 63-58 victory against Jones Dec. 7 stands out as a highlight of the team’s growing maturity and focus on going further in the playoffs this season.

“They’re seniors and they’re realizing that they only have so many games left,” Solano said. “They’re really focused.”

Contact Steven Ryzewski at [email protected].