Basketball Game Preview: West Florida Jaguars vs. Pine Forest Eagles

West Florida hasn't had much luck against Pine Forest recently, but that could start to change on Monday. The West Florida Jaguars will be playing at home against the Pine Forest Eagles at 6:00 p.m. Both come into the contest bolstered by wins in their previous matches.

West Florida will head into Saturday's matchup hoping to keep the good times rolling: they proved they can win big on Monday (they won by 29) and on Saturday they proved they can win the close ones too. They sure made it a nail-biter, but they managed to escape with a 47-45 victory over Pace. Given the Jaguars' advantage in MaxPreps' Florida basketball rankings (they are ranked 117th, while the Patriots are ranked 243rd), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.

West Florida found their leader in sophomore Amani Bartholomew, who went 9 for 15 on her way to 25 points and six rebounds. That makes it four consecutive games in which Bartholomew has scored at least a third of West Florida's points. The team also got some help courtesy of Kamora Harris, who posted eight points and six rebounds.

Meanwhile, winning is always nice, but doing so behind a season-high score is even better (just ask Pine Forest). They really took it to North Bay Haven Academy for the full four quarters, racking up a 62-25 win. The Eagles pushed the score to 47-22 by the end of the third, a deficit the Buccaneers had little chance of recovering from.

West Florida's victory bumped their record up to 10-7. As for Pine Forest, they have been performing well recently as they've won three of their last four games, which provided a nice bump to their 6-7 record this season.

West Florida came up short against Pine Forest in their previous matchup back in November of 2024, falling 44-39. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Pine Forest's Laila Snow, who had 17 points in addition to six assists and four steals. Now that West Florida knows the damage she can cause, will they be able to stop her this time? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.