The New Smyrna Beach Barracudas waltzed into their match on Saturday with three straight wins but they left with four. They sure made it a nail-biter, but they managed to escape with a 55-53 win over DeLand. Given New Smyrna Beach's advantage in MaxPreps' Florida basketball rankings (they are ranked 195th, while DeLand is ranked 403rd), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
New Smyrna Beach had a senior duo take command as Josh Reik scored 21 points along with five assists and three steals and Lukas Parschauer scored 20 points along with eight rebounds and four steals. Parschauer hasn't dropped below eight rebounds for 17 straight games. Another player making a difference was Ray Knight, who scored five points along with two steals.
Despite the loss, DeLand had strong showings from James Rushing, who scored 13 points along with two steals, and Beegie Gordon, who scored ten points along with seven assists. As a matter of fact, that's the most points Rushing has scored all season. The team also got some help courtesy of Jahvari Campbell, who scored eight points along with six rebounds.
New Smyrna Beach is on a roll lately: they've won five of their last six games, which provided a nice bump to their 15-4 record this season. As for DeLand, they have been struggling recently, as they've lost three of their last four matches, which put a noticeable dent in their 6-10 record this season.
New Smyrna Beach will take on Deltona at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday. DeLand will get a bit of extra time to process the loss as their next game is a ways off. They'll take on Pine Ridge at 7:30 p.m. on February 1st.
