Preseason Action: Tampa Bay Tech on a Tuesday

<span style="font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif;font-size: 12pt">According to MaxPreps, <strong>Tampa Bay Tech</strong> is ranked as the number 6 team in the nation, and the only Florida school to crack the top 25. The Titans will be tough to beat this year, or even compete with for that matter. The Titans won the state championship led by 5 underclassmen, and they all returned this year with chemistry and an unreal amount of talent to do it again.</span> &nbsp; <span style="color: #000000;font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif">Tampa Bay Tech is by far the best team in this preseason tourney as they dominated in their 59 point victory last night over a young Clearwater squad who was missing D’Mya Ferguson. The score by period was 20-2, 40-7, 58-7, and the final was 67-8 with Tech controlling from start to finish. </span> &nbsp; <span style="font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif"><span style="color: #000000">Tech had 8 players score at least 4 points with<em><strong> Jasmine Peaks</strong> </em>leading the way with 14 points on shots from everywhere including a couple three-pointers. Jasmine showcased some nifty handles, tight defense, and a smooth stroke as my MVP of the game. <strong><em>Janiah Barker</em> </strong>(8 points) and <strong><em>Amiya Evans</em> </strong>(12 points) owned the paint with their shot blocking and rebounding efforts which made it tough for Clearwater to get any clean or uncontested looks. <em><strong>Laila Duffey</strong> </em>came off of the Titans bench and contributed 11 points with a few steals as well. TBT had a couple juniors in <em><strong>K’Nisha Godfrey</strong> </em>and <em><strong>Jayla Murray</strong> </em>who had solid all-around games by stuffing the stat sheet. This team was solid from 1 through 8 last night.</span></span> &nbsp; <span style="color: #000000;font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif"><strong>Clearwater</strong> is a young team who will go through some growing pains this year, but they have young talent that will continue to develop. They shouldn’t be discouraged as they were up against the best team in the state, and a lot of these girls haven’t played together on this level yet. Freshman <em><strong>Liv Fuller</strong> </em>and <strong><em>Ace Sturdivant</em> </strong>already look like leaders on this team that will look to improve each game. Tech just didn’t allow this team to do anything on offense with their defensive pressure and height/length advantage. The Tornadoes will be just fine if they keep their heads up, and work hard.</span> &nbsp;