The Pine Crest Panthers pushed their score all the way to 67 on Thursday, but even that wasn't enough to win. They fell just short of Palmer Trinity by a score of 70-67. Despite running the score up even higher than they did in their prior game on Wednesday (57), Pine Crest still had to take the loss.
Despite the loss, Pine Crest saw an underclassman step up: Rowan Hoffman dropped a double-double on 32 points and ten rebounds. That was a full 47.8% of Pine Crest's points, marking the sixth time in a row he's earned more than a third of the team's points. Kareem Khouri was another key contributor, scoring 16 points.
Palmer Trinity was led to victory by Jake Keller and Graham Yanowitch. Keller scored 21 points, while Yanowitch dropped a double-double on 22 points and ten rebounds. As a matter of fact, that's the most points Keller has scored all season. The team also got some help courtesy of George Montes, who scored 11 points.
This is the second loss in a row for Pine Crest and nudges their season record down to 7-11. As for Palmer Trinity, they are on a roll lately: they've won four of their last five matchups, which provided a nice bump to their 10-9 record this season.
Pine Crest will head out on the road to square off against the Bulls at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday. West Boca Raton is coming into the matchup on a three-game losing streak. As for Palmer Trinity, they won't have much time to rest: their next matchup is against the Conchs at 5:00 p.m. on January 26th. Key West knows how to get points on the board -- the squad has finished with flashy point totals in its past four games -- so hopefully the Falcons likes a good challenge.
