The Viera Hawks came tearing into Thursday's matchup with four straight wins (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 15.3 points) and they left with even more momentum. They walked away with a 37-28 win over Heritage. Given Viera's advantage in MaxPreps' Florida basketball rankings (they are ranked 90th, while Heritage is ranked 242nd), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Phantasia Lauriston continued her habit of posting crazy stat lines, scoring 19 points. The matchup was her seventh in a row with at least ten points. Another player making a difference was Kylie Winslow, who scored three points along with four steals.
Despite the loss, Heritage had strong showings from Trishay Collins, who dropped a double-double on 11 points and 15 rebounds, and Gionna Goodlow, who scored six points. Collins scored a full 39.3% of Heritage's points, the third time in a row she's earned more than a third of the team's points.
Viera's win was their fourth straight on the road dating back to last season, which pushed their record up to 7-2. Those victories were due in large part to their offensive dominance across that stretch, as they averaged 52.8 points per game. As for Heritage, this is the second loss in a row for them and nudges their season record down to 3-4.
Viera will be home for the holidays to greet Palm Bay at 7:00 p.m. on Monday. Hopefully Palm Bay focused on turnovers this week since the team gave up 13 on Thursday. Heritage will get a bit of extra time to process the loss as their next game is a ways off. They'll take on Edgewood at 4:00 p.m. on January 3, 2024.
