ORANGE PARK – St. John Country Day girls basketball is looking like one of the county’s premier teams with only one loss coming into tonight’s matchup between the Spartans and the visiting St. Joseph Flashes. The only issue the girls needed to deal with on their 11-1 record is that one loss was to the Flashes on December 5.

“St. Joe is an excellent team,” said St. Johns coach Yolando Bronston. “All we need to do is execute what we practiced.” Instead, a three week holiday break took its toll as the Spartans could only muster four points in the first quarter to the Flashes 15 as St. Joseph rolled to a 57-34 district win. The hole dug was just too deep no matter what tricks the girls pulled out.

In the end, the Flashes would still be known as the only team to beat the Spartans so far this season.

“Hats off to that team” said Bronston. “We just weren’t hitting, been off since December 19th, and came into this game knowing this was the only team to beat us this season, so yes, that played a part on the girls.”

With the Spartans unable to get a roll, the team finally rallied in the second quarter to get the shots to fall, going into the locker room at the half 32-18. The Flashes played a rough, physical game all night that saw foul after foul on both teams as the girls attempted to stay just as raw with each other.

Late in the game, a Spartan time out and some motivation from Bronston got the girls to really pick it up and closed the gap to 15 points with three minutes left to play.

Just as things were lining up, the Flashes turned up the wick and stopped the Spartan momentum in its tracks.

“We just weren’t hitting, but it wasn’t for lack of hustle,” said Bronston.

The Spartans were up and down the court all night, sometimes looking like a tennis match. Even with subs and timeouts, the frantic pace and failure to drain shots were too much as the Spartans recorded only the second loss of this season.

“I’m not upset,” said Bronston. “It’ll click. Second loss to the same team- it hurts. We’ll learn from this and move on.”