Preview: Palmetto Ridge Bears vs. Gulf Coast Sharks
Two dominant guards in Calven Charles and Daniel Riverasoto are getting ready to go toe-to-toe. The Palmetto Ridge Bears will square off against the Gulf Coast Sharks at 5:00 p.m. on Saturday. Both teams are coming into the contest red-hot, with Palmetto Ridge sitting on five straight victories and Gulf Coast on four.
It can be hard to translate regular season success to the playoffs, but Palmetto Ridge had no problem doing just that on Thursday. Everything went their way against the Indians as they made off with a 75-49 win. Given Palmetto Ridge's advantage in MaxPreps' Florida basketball rankings (they are ranked 83rd, while Immokalee is ranked 403rd), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Charles continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines, dropping a double-double on 27 points and 12 rebounds. That makes it seven consecutive games in which he has scored at least a third of Palmetto Ridge's points. The team also got some help courtesy of Sean Gomez, who scored 14 points.
Meanwhile, Gulf Coast didn't have too much breathing room in their match against South Fort Myers on Thursday, but they still walked away with a 56-50 win.
Palmetto Ridge is on a roll lately: they've won ten of their last 11 matchups, which provided a nice bump to their 21-3 record this season. As for Gulf Coast, they pushed their record up to 14-10 with that win, which was their fifth straight at home.
Palmetto Ridge skirted past Gulf Coast 55-53 in their previous matchup back in January. The rematch might be a little tougher for Palmetto Ridge since the squad won't have the home-court advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
