#4 Northwest Florida Relies On Defense To Keep Pirates At Bay
(partial content provided from Raider athletics)
(January 29, 2022) Pensacola, FL – The Lou Ross Center in Pensacola has routinely been a difficult place for Northwest Florida to find offensive prowess. That trend continued on Saturday, as Raider baskets were hard to come by all night long.
Fortunately for NWF, this time their defense returned the favor on their host, as the Pirates found it equally difficult to score. In the end, it was the Raiders, who led nearly the entire game, that made enough plays down the stretch to escape Hartsell Arena with a 54-50 victory.
The win moves Northwest Florida to 23-2 overall and 7-1 in the Panhandle. The Raiders have a game and a half lead over second place Chipola (5-2).
The first portion of the game looked like it might be a night where NWF would click on all cylinders. The defense was flying around, dunks were abundant, and 3-pointers were falling. Pensacola, however, put the brakes on the Raider runaway with some solid defense of their own.
Once their offense began to make some noise late in the first half, things tightened up. A Pirate run to close the half gave them momentum that seemingly carried over for the rest of the game, although NWF led 30-22 at the break.
After the early success, the Raider offense had difficulty finding their rhythm. A few highlights were sprinkled in with a largely stagnant second half. With the offensive struggles, Head coach Greg Heiar knew they had to continue to make life tough for the Pirates on every possession. Rising to the occasion, Heier’s troups did just that.
Let’s face it, Pensacola isn’t an offensive juggernaut by any means. Averaging 62.7 ppg, PSC ranks 184th in scoring. During their current 8 game losing streak, they have averaged only 55 ppg. But teams still have to defend, especially when having difficulty finding the bottom of the net themselves.
By limiting the Pirates to just 50 points on 35% shooting, NWF was able to keep the Pirates at arms length long enough to earn the road win. Pensacola did out-rebound the Raider, but committing 17 turnovers in a low possession game played a big part in the final outcome.
Northwest managed to shoot 41% from the field (20-49), but only hit 3-17 (18%) from outside the arc where they average 38%.
NWF was led by Issa Muhammad with 15 points, who also brought down 6 boards. Brennan Rigsby offered twelve points, with Tre Clark chipped in 11 plus 6 helpers. Deshawndre Washington ended up a point short from a dub-dub nabbing 10 rebounds.
Jarveil Gainey and Zondrick Garrett kept the Pirates afloat, with matching 17 point outings. Garrett twinned with ten boards. Pensacola drops to 9-14, 0-7.
