ORANGE PARK - Orange Park High boys basketball coach Derek Kurnitsky admitted that his early exit in the post season last year (a district runnerup finish to Fleming Island, but no invite to the region playoffs) has been a force of motivation for his team this season, and, with a solid 61-52 win over county rival Oakleaf in the new and improved Raiderdome, the Raiders looked to be ready to take that step into the playoffs in the spring.

"I talked to them about the Ribault playoff game that we lost on an 80-foot throw with two seconds on the clock," said Kurnitsky, who faces the daunting task of a hot Fleming Island team in his newly formed district 3-5A lineup that is all Clay County minus Oakleaf (6A) and Keystone Heights (4A). "We know we will have to be able to run with Fleming Island and go deep on the bench. They have a great front four, but we are going to be fast on the floor."

In their season opener against Oakleaf, with the Knights also bringing an athletic and fast lineup, the Knights opened with a three pointer and layup to go up 5-0 with Orange Park guard Marcus Bullock answering to 5-3 with a three in what looked like a shooter's fest brewing.

The scoring brimmed at just 8-6 with four minutes before Markell Campbell hit a jumper with a turnaround jumper by Nolan Cole tying the game at 8-8. Raider center Josiah Bell got a rebound and dish to Cace Puzie to 10-8 with McKnight tying with a jumper. Marcus Bullock drained a three to 13-10 Oakleaf's Makylan Reeves muscling up a rebound to 13-12.

Oakleaf coach Jason Price made a three-man roster switch to refresh his troop's legs and got a sweeping left hander from Marcus Goggins to put Oakleaf up 14-13.
In the second quarter, with five minutes to go, Orange Park went up 23-16 with Campbell hitting another three pointer. Campbell pushed the score to 25-18 with a driving up and under layup through the paint.

Campbell got nailed with an offensive charge foul to give Oakleaf some breath with 2:09 to halftime and just a 25-20 Raider lead. Oakleaf guard Aryan Dharma directed the Knights' offense with Orange Park's defense harassing the Knights' offense from the midcourt stripe with the Knights closing the score to 26-22 to halftime.

Orange Park kept the gap in the score through the rest of the game with Oakleaf getting as close as 48-37 as the third quarter ended. In the fourth, Orange Park opened to 60-46 with a Cole jumper to 60-48.

"We scored 64 and we played good defense," Kurnitsky said. "A good team win, a good win for the Raiderdome and the alums that were here. I told them we have to spurt in the second half, and we got up and stayed there."