The East Lee County Jaguars on the road again on Thursday and play against the Gateway Eagles at 7:30 p.m. on January 25th. East Lee County will have to bring their A-game into this one, as they are staring down a pretty big deficit in the MaxPreps Florida Rankings (they are ranked 486th, while Gateway is ranked 115th).
Last Tuesday, East Lee County was just a bucket shy of victory and fell 52-51 to Island Coast. That's two games in a row now that East Lee County has lost by exactly a single point.
Meanwhile, Gateway had already won five in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 10.4 points), and they went ahead and made it six on Tuesday. They escaped with a win against Lehigh by the margin of a single free throw, 56-55. Having run the score up that high, both teams probably have some extra defensive drills coming up.
East Lee County's defeat dropped their record down to 6-8. As for Gateway, their win was their third straight on the road, which pushed their record up to 15-2.
East Lee County didn't have too much breathing room in their matchup against Gateway in their previous meeting back in January of 2023, but they still walked away with a 62-56 victory. The rematch might be a little tougher for East Lee County since the squad won't have the home-court advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
