By By Matthew Nascone
The Escambia Academy boys' basketball squad traveled to Faith and came home disappointed after an 84-35 loss to Faith Academy.
"We didn't play well at all and I was a little disappointed with our effort out there," EA head coach Kevin Woods said. "We did not play up to our potential."
The Cougars turned the ball over 28 times and shot only 28 percent from the field. Woods said he does not know what happened, but the team will work on it in practice.
Defending AISA Class 3A state champion Faith Academy out hustled the Cougars and killed them on the boards, Woods said.
"We will try to put this one behind us and go back to work," Woods said.
There was a silver lining in the second half.
"We hustled a lot better in the second half and I saw some good things in that half," Woods said. "We played much better, but it was not enough."
The game was stuck on a score of 5-3 for a long time before Faith took over the game and EA could not keep up.
Andrew Lambeth led the Cougars in scoring with 14 points and he snagged two rebounds. Wesley Channell dropped in 10 points. Joe Drew scored five points and grabbed six rebounds. Cody Norton added six points and three rebounds. Blake Kirk snagged two rebounds.
The Cougars travel across the border for a matchup with the Northview Chiefs tomorrow. Tip off is set for 4 p.m.
Faith 60 – Lady Cougars 41
The Escambia Academy Lady Cougars opened the season playing well, but fell 60-41 to Faith Academy.
"We did good and I was proud of how they played," EA head coach Andy Gorum said. "We were only down nine points at halftime to a much bigger school."
And the Lady Cougars were fueled by the marginal lead Faith had.
"They told me at halftime that they were nervous coming into the game, but after the first half they believed they could play with those girls," Gorum said. "And I told them to just go out there and play our game and have fun."
But EA could not stop the scoring in the third quarter and Faith built a lead that the Lady Cougars were not able to penetrate. But Gorum said it was a good first game.
"I was real proud of them," he said. "Because they never quit and they were fighting to win all the way until the end of the game. And I told them after the game that as long as they gave me 100 percent effort, considering who we were playing, they played well."
The Lady Cougars travel across the border for a matchup with the Northview Lady Chiefs tomorrow. Tip off is set for 4 p.m.