Basketball Game Preview: Winter Springs Bears vs. Lake Howell Silverhawks

Winter Springs hasn't had much luck against Lake Howell recently, but that could start to change on Monday. The Winter Springs Bears will head out on the road to face off against the Lake Howell Silverhawks at 7:30 p.m. Winter Springs will be looking to extend their current four-game winning streak.

If Lake Howell heads into halftime all tied up, they better play a good second half: that's when Winter Springs took over last week. Winter Springs came out on top against Merritt Island by a score of 49-37 on Thursday. Given the Bears' advantage in MaxPreps' Florida basketball rankings (they are ranked 165th, while the Mustangs are ranked 526th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.

Winter Springs' success was the result of a balanced attack that saw several players step up, but Daniel Stringer led the charge by putting up 17 points. Stringer has been hot recently, having also posted two or more steals the last four times he's played. Another player making a difference was Elijah Nieves, who posted ten points along with eight steals and six assists.

Meanwhile, Lake Howell entered their match against Evans on Friday without any home losses, but there's a first time for everything. Lake Howell was just a bucket shy of victory and fell 62-61 to Evans. Despite running the score up even higher than they did in their prior game on Wednesday (56), the Silverhawks still had to take the loss.

Winter Springs is on a roll lately: they've won eight of their last nine games, which provided a nice bump to their 15-5 record this season. As for Lake Howell, their loss ended a ten-game streak of wins at home dating back to last season and dropped them to 17-5.

Winter Springs couldn't quite finish off Lake Howell when the teams last played back in December of 2023 and fell 45-43. Can Winter Springs avenge their defeat or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.