Tritons steamroll Seahawks 58-21
This early in the basketball season, Mariner’s boys are well ahead of their rivals at Cape Coral.
The Tritons rolled to a 58-21 victory Friday night over the Seahawks at Frank Morris Memorial Gym.
Mariner is 6-0, 2-0 in District 5A-12 after wins Thursday and Friday.
“They’ve got one of the best coaches in Lee County, one of the best programs in Southwest Florida,” Seahawks coach Tom Kenna said. “We’re just trying to build ours.”
Friday’s game was pretty much over after the first quarter, when Mariner built a 21-0 lead.
What Tritons coach James Harris was happy about was his team didn’t just play that one dominating quarter.
“I tell you what, I was so disappointed in our defense after the first quarter” of Thursday’s 65-53 district win over Immokalee, Harris said. “I’ve been harping on the guys that you can’t play one quarter. I thought we played well defensively the entire night.
“I challenged them. I challenged them the last 24 hours, you’ve got to play better defensively.,” he said.?Mariner’s defense held Cape scoreless for nearly 10 minutes to start the game.
“We didn’t score as much as we wanted tonight, but if you get stops you make it really tough to score on us,” Harris said. “Our offense can struggle when our defense plays like they did.”
Cape Coral slipped to 2-4, 0-1 in the district. The Seahawks had won two in a row, including 52-45 Thursday at East Lee County, after an 0-3 start.
While the Tritons are on a roll, Kenna’s Seahawks are still coming together as a team. Key players have been joining the roster in stages since the conclusion of football season. Two Seahawks, Mi’Cario Stanley and Lawrence Perez, weren’t in uniform as recently as a week ago in Cape’s Island Coast Turkey Shootout win over Jensen Beach.
“We had some football players out, and we’re working hard to try to get better,” Kenna said.
Slow starts have been the norm at Cape in recent seasons.
“I would say the previous two years we were under .500 the first five games and we ended up in the district championship game,” Kenna said. “It’s a work in progress.”
Rodney Hunter led Mariner with 17 points and eight rebounds. Caleb Taylor added 10 points and six rebounds.
Mariner has district games at Golden Gate on Friday and home against Lely on Dec. 16 before a holiday tournament schedule that includes single games in the City of Palms Classic and Tritons Shootout and three contests in the Arby’s Classic in Bristol, Tenn.
“We’ve got to go to Golden Gate next Friday,” Harris said. “That’s the biggest game on the schedule. That’s the goal for us right now not for any other reason than it’s the next game on our schedule. We’ve got to get that one. We’ve got to go on the road and win.”
Cape Coral, meanwhile, is home against Cypress Lake on Tuesday at Lely next Friday in a pair of District 5A-12 contests.
In all, the Seahawks have seven games between Tuesday and Dec. 19, when the holiday break begins.