Sometimes teams can play a game well below a coach’s expectations and still walk away with a win. In Friday night’s match up between Cypress Springs and Cypress Falls, that was exactly the case. The Panthers’ second-half surge helped them to 55-50 victory over the Golden Eagles in a District 17-5A game.

And though a win is a win, Cy Springs coach John Harmatuk is just happy they pulled it off despite their game play.

“We didn’t play very well, we didn’t execute very well and we still found a way to win,” Harmatuk said. “I’m real excited about that because that is what good teams do, find a way to win especially at a tough place like Cy Falls.”

With hyper fans on both sides of the floor, these two teams changed leads several times throughout the first half. Early on it was the Golden Eagles keeping the pressure on the Panthers and that converted to points.

It was Cy Falls’ Mike Zahr leading the way in the first half with nine points. For the Panthers, Erik Williams was in the paint cleaning up the glass and had nine points of his own. Cy Falls held the lead at halftime 29-27.

But on the first possession of the second half, Cy Springs went into a full court press and jumped out quickly to regain the lead.

“We wanted to put full court pressure on them from the get go and they actually put the pressure on us in the first half,” Harmatuk said. “And I told them at halftime that we needed to be the aggressor.”

The pep talk obviously worked. The Panthers, led by Daquan Williams’ 13 second-half points, went on a run to hold a four-point lead heading into the final quarter.

“He’s (Williams) the one who made the big key in the second half putting pressure on them defensively by pushing the ball up the court,” Harmatuk said. “So when does that, we are a hard team to guard.”

Cy Springs will travel to Langham Creek while Cy Falls will play host to Jersey Village. Both games are on Monday.

HIGH SCORERS
CS – Erik Williams (17)
CS – Daquan Williams (16)
CS – Phillip McDonald (10)
CF – Kenneth Scott (15)
CF – Josh Struble (13)
CF – Kris Dao (9)

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