The Cardinal Mooney Cougars were the  49-46 winner over the Sarasota Sailors when they last played one another  back in February of 2023, but their luck changed this time around. Cardinal Mooney opened the new year with a less-than-successful  52-47 loss to they on Friday. While losing is never fun, they can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage  in MaxPreps' Florida basketball rankings  (they are ranked 207th, while Sarasota is ranked 46th).
 Despite the loss, Cardinal Mooney still got an impressive performance from   Connor Heald, who  scored 24 points along with five  rebounds. Heald scored a full 51.1% of Cardinal Mooney's points, the eighth time in a row he's  earned more than a third of the team's points. The team also got some help courtesy of  Kevin O'donoghue, who  scored ten points along with five  rebounds.
 This is  the second loss in a row for Cardinal Mooney and  nudges their season record down to 8-7. As for Sarasota,  the  victory  makes it two in a row for them and  bumps their season record up to 11-2.
 Cardinal Mooney will head out on the road to face off against Imagine School at North Port at 7:30  p.m.  on Monday. Imagine School at North Port is coming into the  match on a four-game losing streak. As for Sarasota, they will look to defend their home court  on Tuesday against Venice at 7:30  p.m. Hopefully Venice focused on turnovers this week  since the team gave up ten last Saturday.