Lady Crusaders win tournament opener
Dec. 30—This was the sort of game that the Grace Christian Lady Crusaders wanted to play, and on the first night of the Tampa Bay Christmas Invitational at the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus in Wesley Chapel, Fla., that was what they got.
The Lady Crusaders finished their pre-Christmas slate with two straight quality wins over in-state foes and skyrocketed from No. 22 to No. 7 among North Carolina high school women's basketball teams, according to MaxPreps. Then, on Wednesday night, they took on DME Sports Academy, the seventh-ranked team in Florida, and scored a 59-54 victory.
DME (10-3) is a private sports training academy and high school based in Daytona Beach, using a model similar to that of IMG Academy, another Florida-based school and sports academy that prepares elite prep athletes for college competition and academics. In the past two seasons, these are the sorts of teams that the Grace women, who seldom get competitive games against ordinary high school teams, have tried to face.
In fact, in DME's final game before Christmas, the Lady Lakers had beaten IMG 65-56 to win the championship of their holiday tournament. DME's only other losses before facing Grace had come against the fourth- and sixth-ranked teams in Maryland, both in contests that went down to the final minute, in a tournament played in that state.
No details beyond the final score were available, but the win improved Grace's overall record to 12-0 going into its next game in its eight-team bracket, against St. Thomas Aquinas of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. on Friday night at 7:50 p.m. They are the fourth-ranked team in Florida's 6A classification and 26th overall in the state after being William Penn Charter (Penn.) 59-45 in Wednesday's opening round.
The Lady Crusaders moved up two spots to No. 5 in North Carolina, and No. 1 in the NCISAA 2A ranks, after Wednesday's victory.
