The Seacrest Country Day Stingrays waltzed into their matchup on Thursday with two straight wins but they left with three. They walked away with a 59-48 victory over Canterbury. Given Seacrest Country Day's advantage in MaxPreps' Florida basketball rankings (they are ranked 79th, while Canterbury is ranked 218th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Seacrest Country Day had a senior duo take command as Madison D'Elia scored 17 points along with nine rebounds and six steals and Ty'Nazia Smith scored 13 points along with five assists and five steals. Smith's trending in the right direction, as she's improved his point production for three games straight. Another player making a difference was Kailee Hayhurst, who scored nine points along with five assists.
Despite the loss, Canterbury saw an underclassman step up: Casey O'connell scored 30 points along with eight rebounds and two steals. O'connell continues to roll, besting her previous point total in each of the last three games she's played.
Seacrest Country Day's win was their seventh straight at home, which pushed their record up to 13-3. Those good results were due in large part to their offensive dominance across that stretch, as they averaged 59.6 points per game. As for Canterbury, this is the second loss in a row for them and nudges their season record down to 8-3.
Seacrest Country Day will head out on the road to face off against Evangelical Christian at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Averaging 61.7 so far this season, Evangelical Christian's high-powered offense has been in full-swing lately, so Seacrest Country Day better be ready for a challenge. Canterbury won't have much time to rest: their next matchup is against North Fort Myers at 6:00 p.m. on January 12th. Hopefully North Fort Myers focused on turnovers this week since the team gave up 22 on Thursday.
