Winter Park, CFCA win Rotary Tip-Off games

Tournament host Winter Park didn’t come in as one of the favorites in this week’s Rotary Tip-Off Classic but the Wildcats started strong on Thursday night.

Unranked Winter Park scored a 61-49 quarterfinal victory against Sanford Seminole (1-1), which was No. 9 in the Sentinel Super 16 Orlando area rankings. Josiah Dancy, a 5-foot-8 senior guard, scored 17 points to lead the Wildcats (2-0).

Winter Park, off to its best start since a 6-0 beginning to its 2014-15 district title season, advances to Friday’s semifinal round to meet area No. 6 Central Florida Christian (2-0) which turned on the running clock in a 74-42 win against No. 13 Edgewater

(1-2).

Ta’Veon Jones and Jamar Houston both scored 15 points for CFCA.

Orlando Christian Prep bounced back from its Wednesday loss to Olympia and reset its win streak to one with by doubling up the score on Daytona Beach Mainland (2-3) in a 62-31 consolation bracket victory.

Isaiah Brown and Ven-Allen Lubin each scored 14 points and Mike Brown added 13 for the Warriors (2-1).

OCP will play in Saturday’s consolation bracket final at 5.

Montverde crushes Oak Hill

National No. 1 Montverde Academy routed eighthranked Oak Hill Academy (8-2) of Virginia 86-51 as the National Interscholastic Basketball Conference opened a three-night series in Lake County.

Montverde’s five starters and first player off the bench combined to make 65% of their shots (33 of 51). Jalen Hood-Schifino scored 21 points, Dariq Whitehead 19 and Vincent Iwuchukwu and Malik Reneau 13 each.

Meanwhile, Oak Hill shot 31% (16 of 52).

National No. 3 Sunrise Christian of Kansas (4-0) won the opening game 68-62 over No. 2 IMG Academy (2-1) of Bradenton.

Sunrise plays Oak Hill at 6 p.m. and Montverde (3-0) takes on IMG at 8 on Friday night. The series concludes Saturday with two games, capped by Montverde vs. Sunrise at 7.