What we learned: 3 takeaways from Gulf Coast's 58-43 win over Northwest Florida State
PANAMA CITY — In the first two meetings this season against Northwest Florida State, Gulf Coast held a fourth quarter lead before running out of gas late and allowing the Raiders to escape with close wins.
Ahead of Saturday afternoon's third and final regular season matchup with the No. 3 Raiders, Gulf Coast coach Rory Kuhn couldn't help but think his team was on track to finally finish one against the Panhandle Conference's top team.
"I said the last time we played then we didn't have Ciante (Downs), we didn't have Taylor (Jarrels), Morgan (Robinson-Nwagwu) and Anaya (Boyd) ran out of gas, and we lost by six points. The girls remembered that," he said. "They really wanted this one and to their credit they got it. I definitely felt like we were due. I thought we could get them at some point and it happened to be today."
The 58-43 win came despite the continued absence of starting power forward and second-leading scorer Anaya Boyd, who missed her fourth straight game with a meniscus injury that will keep her out indefinitely.
The Commodores (16-8 overall and 5-4 in the Panhandle Conference) are now 3-1 since Boyd went out, with the only loss coming on Wednesday 63-51 at Chipola. They'll have another huge road test next week against Pensacola State (16-5, 4-4) and will need to come up with a similar effort without Boyd.
"It was a huge win without Anaya," Kuhn said. "For the girls to step up and move forward without her and bounce back from Wednesday and respond was huge. Everybody stepped up, now we have to go do it on the road."
Morgan Robinson-Nwagwu led Gulf Coast with 19 points, five rebounds, and four assists, with Imani Smith adding 16 points, nine rebounds, and four assists. Ava Miller and Abby Cracknell scored seven points each.
The Raiders, who were led by Noelani Cornfield's 17 points and Ines Piper's 14 points, fell to 7-2 in the Panhandle and 21-2 overall.
Gulf Coast guards get it done
In the absence of the team's top scoring forward, most of Gulf Coast's offense Saturday
came from the backcourt, with Robinson-Nwagwu and Smith combining for 35 of the team's
58 points on 5 of 11 shooting from the 3-point line.
Robinson-Nwagwu did much of her damage in the first half with 15 points, accounting for over half of the team's 27-point total, scoring from the 3-point line, with off-ball cuts and dribbles drives, and even converting once out of the post.
Smith scored 11 of her points in the second half, including seven in the fourth starting with a big 3-pointer to push the Commodores' lead to 15 points, and helped put the game on ice by making 10 of 11 from the free throw line.
While Robinson-Nwagwu has been a consistent 20-point per game scorer all season, Kuhn said the emergence of Smith is a significant development for his team. With Boyd out for the foreseeable future, the Commodores will need both to play like they did Saturday down the stretch.
"I think Imani is growing up right before our eyes and Morgan has been our anchor all year," Kuhn said. "I told Morgan with Anaya out that you've really got to step up. Every team is gonna be gunning for you, they know who you are, so you've got to continue to put the team on your back and lift us to go forward and I think she did that today."
Doing it with defense
While the offense did its part to get the victory, it was at the defensive end of
the court that the Commodores won this game.
Gulf Coast held the Raiders to just 30.8 percent shooting from the field, their second-worst shooting performance of the season, and to a season-low point total of 43 points, three fewer than the previous low of 46 in a season-opening win over Florida Southwestern State.
The Raiders scored just 19 points on 8 of 28 shooting in the first half, with leading scorer Last-Tear Poa limited to just two points for the game after averaging 24.5 points in the first two meetings.
Kuhn said the Commodores' defensive gem was a product of effort, focus, and most importantly, preparation.
"We got after it today," Kuhn said. "We did a lot of scout work, we knew how we wanted to guard them and we did the things we needed to do to win. To the players' credit, they paid attention and listened to what I wanted them to do and they did it and we executed."
A bonus win
Even after Wednesday's 63-51 road loss to Chipola, Gulf Coast still controlled its
destiny to get a top three Panhandle Conference finish and take one of the league's
state tournament berths thanks to remaining games against the Indians, Pensacola State,
and Tallahassee.
Saturday's win over the Raiders put the Commodores in a stronger position to do just that, with a split between games against Chipola and Pensacola State and a win over winless Tallahassee to give them a 7-5 record that would almost certainly put them in the postseason.
"We're definitely looking at it like we have to get two more games that we really need to win," Kuhn said. "We were looking at this one as trying to get us in a bonus situation in a sense. Just looking at the schedule this was probably the hardest team we'll face, so if we're able to knock them off and take care of business and do what we're supposed to do then we should be OK."