GREEN COVE SPRINGS - With Clay County chock full of tough, hard playing girls basketball teams—Orange Park at 11-3, Fleming Island at 8-4 and St. Johns Country Day School at 8-5—it is quite the season turnaround for two teams that had dismal seasons last year.

"We took the girls that we had and had a great offseason and summer preparation program," said Clay High girls basketball coach Doug Deters, who just completed a Clay High Christmas Tournament team victory over a Keystone Heights team that was undefeated in first five games of their season and came to Clay with a 5-2 record. "Keystone Heights had one loss when we first played them in regular season play and came here looking for revenge. They also had a key player here that wasn't playing in the first game. It makes it all good basketball for both teams and in the county."

Deters reference to the first game with Keystone Heights was a 44-22 win by Clay on Dec. 15 that was followed last week with a championship final at the Clay Christmas Tournament that had Clay win a second game, 38-25.

"They came here with their senior guard (Kadence Massey) who was not at the first game and we had to alter our game plan to figure on her," Deters said. "Our defense stepped up in the championship game."

For Clay, Deters' win was the first tournament win in nearly five years for the Clay program which was 4-16 last year after a 15-11 season and a 3-20 season in 2023.

"I think the last team title was in like 2017," Deters said. "Having Teaghan Moses back has been big this year and all the other girls are contributing; Annaliese Hovda and Alia Chmura under the basket have been working hard to keep the ball in play. Kathryn Moran is a good shot when she gets the ball; she had eight points."

Against Keystone Heights, Moses hit for 13 points with Hovda adding another 11 with three three pointers. Chmura added five rebounds with Moses getting five and freshman Harper Bell snagging another four.

Clay got to the final with a 36-14 win over Covenant School of Jacksonville with Keystone Heights beating Union County 37-23 to stop a three-game losing streak to Palatka, Clay and Chiefland.

Orange Park, at 11-3, who last lost to 5A powerhouse Booker T. Washington High out of Pensacola in the Inside Exposure Tournament at Bolles, had scorched for eight straight wins with a team title at the Orange Park Girls Christmas Tournament also held last week. Orange Park's streak saw wins over Middleburg, Ribault, Bartram Trail, Beachside, Ridgeview, Leon and ED White, as well as Lincoln in their own tournament.

The Raiders' 1-2-3 punch comes from the scoring of nearly 12-13 points apiece from the sophomore trio of Ella Crowe, Gabbi Mallory and Trinity Dinkins.
Crowe has scoring totals of 20, 13, 16, 3, 9 and 16 in the last six games with Dinkins dropping 18, 17, 10, 8, 12 and 17. Mallory had the hot hand with 26 against Leon with games of 7, 15, 9, 13 and 15.

"You can't stop all three," said Orange Park coach Mike Nesmith, in a preseason media day. "At least one will have a hot hand, the other will find that one and feed the points."

Orange Park returns to action with sixth ranked in 7A-Creekside (8-5), 25th ranked in 3A-Andrew Jackson (9-5) and 6A-Daytona Beach Mainland (2-8) as a tough week of games. Mainland is a top tier program that graduated a stellar class and was state 5A runner-up two years ago and 5A champions in 2023.

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Fleming Island, third team at the Battle on the Island Tournament at Fleming Island last week, and now 8-4, lost in their semifinal to Ribault and won a 56-50 third place title over Rickards. The team headed to the Tampa Christmas Invitational for more tournaments play on Dec. 26-28. The Golden Eagles opened with 38-32 loss on Dec. 26 with Southeastern Prep Academy. Southeastern Prep has a regional and national team out of Orlando and is ranked 15th in Florida with a 2-2 record.

Fleming Island will open in pool play at Sand Key Beach High with Beachside, Ocala Forest, Southeastern Prep, St. Francis of Puerto Rico and Viera.
Fleming Island was scheduled to play Santaluces High (7-3, 7A0 on Monday, Dec. 29 with a shot at a third place in their pool.

Middleburg, 4-6, also played at the Tampa Bay event with an opening game against Bluegrass United of Kentucky (6-5) on Saturday, Dec. 27. The Broncos lost against Bluegrass 45-34, and continued with games on Monday, Dec. 29 with finals on Tuesday, Dec. 30. The Broncos were set to play Jordan Christian Prep out of Auburndale (3-9) on Monday.

St. Johns Country Day School had their hands full against a tough shooting Ribault (11-5) team at the Orange Park Girls Basketball Christmas Invite and lost a 76-72 overtime semifinal on Tuesday, Dec. 23. The Spartans' top scorer Kendall Proffitt and Ribault's Trinity Brown staged a mano-a-mano scoring battle with Proffitt netting 34 points with seven threes and Berry pumping in 31 points with four threes. Proffitt, averaging just under 30 points per game, had a corner three pointer at the buzzer to tie the game at 72-72 and send the game to overtime.

"Was a good game against a good team," said St. Johns coach Tyler Miller. "Madi Dorsey did great, adding 16 points and some key three pointers at the end."

Dorsey had four three pointers for the Spartans. St. Johns beat Bradford 61-51 to get to the Ribault game.

In Class 6A ball, Oakleaf is at 5-9 with a 69-64 loss to Ocala Forest at the Orange Park Tournament. The Knights hosted Tallahassee Maclay on Tuesday, Dec. 29 at 11 a.m. then Episcopal on Dec. 30 at 4:15 p.m.

Ridgeview is at 3-7 with a 58-41 win over Branford at the Battle on the Island with Bartram Trail and Tocoi Creek in January.