The Cocoa Beach Minutemen will be playing in front of their home fans against the New Smyrna Beach Barracudas at 7:00 p.m. on Monday. Each of these teams will be battling to keep a five-game winning streak alive.
Cocoa Beach has made a habit of sweeping their opponents off the court, having now won three contests by 21 points or more this season. They claimed a resounding 80-16 win over Calvary Chapel Academy at home. With Cocoa Beach ahead 49-8 at the half, the matchup was all but over already.
Jay Matthews was his usual excellent self, scoring 22 points along with 4 steals. That makes it seven consecutive games in which he has scored at least 25% of Cocoa Beach's points. The team also got some help courtesy of Gavin Goodwin, who scored 16 points.
Meanwhile, even if it wasn't a dominant performance, New Smyrna Beach beat Flagler Palm Coast 55-50 on Thursday. Given New Smyrna Beach's advantage in MaxPreps' Florida basketball rankings (they are ranked 68th, while Flagler Palm Coast is ranked 298th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Cocoa Beach's win bumped their record up to 5-2. As for New Smyrna Beach, their win was their fourth straight on the road, which pushed their record up to 5-0.
Cocoa Beach was dealt a bruising 78-50 defeat at the hands of New Smyrna Beach in their previous matchup back in November of 2022. Thankfully for Cocoa Beach, Connor Mccardel (who scored 18 points along with 6 assists and 6 rebounds) won't be suiting up this time. Will that be enough to change the final result? There's only one way to find out.
