By By Matthew Nascone
A balanced scoring attack led to a 43-33 victory over Patrician Academy on the hard wood for the Escambia Academy Cougars Friday night in Canoe.
EA senior Tyler Harrison, junior Blake Kirk and sophomore James White each scored 11 points for the Cougars in the win. Kirk added 10 rebounds and Harrison and White each contributed nine rebounds.
EA head coach Kevin Woods said the Cougars excelled in a couple of other areas of the game as well.
"We played great defense and we didn't turn the ball over," he said. "We still shot horribly from the floor at 28 percent, but we played a lot better team defense and we did not give up the easy shots off turnovers."
Woods said the win was a continuation of what he called a good game the night before.
"We played good against Monroe, but we just couldn't pull out the win," Woods said. "Against Patrician we hung in there and pulled out the win."
Sophomore Tank Mitchell added 6 points, three rebounds and three steals and sophomore Michael Hippa had 4 points. Harrison had four steals and White added two steals.
Woods said if the team can get over its bad streak of shooting they will be a dangerous team to play.
"If we can somehow shoot 40 percent every night we will be rough on some teams because of our defense," he said. "But we are just struggling right now from the field making the shots. We are getting the shots, but we are just not finishing the play."
The Cougars squared off with Sparta in Evergreen in the opening area game of the season for both teams Tuesday. Results will be in an upcoming Advance.
Next up for the Cougars is a game Thursday night against Wilcox Academy. Tip off is set for 4 p.m. for the JV girls' game.