American Heritage cruises to victory
PLANTATION — With only a few games left until a playoff run and a bid for its fourth straight state championship, American Heritage is still looking for ways to improve.
The Patriots rolled to a 60-25 victory over Archbishop McCarthy in Plantation on Thursday night, but coach Greg Farias still has aspects of the game where he wants his team to get better.
“It’s really hard this year, trying to get game after game,” Farias said. “We [haven’t] had too many games in between. So it’s good to have a game like this to prepare us for the road trip tomorrow. Sometimes you go five games to a week without one game, and it’s just difficult because practice is so different from the games.”
The Patriots’ defense held the Mavericks down for the first half. Archbishop McCarthy scored only two points in the first quarter and didn’t make its first basket from the field until 10:53 had passed in the game.
The large score margin gave Heritage an opportunity to work on new defenses.
“As a team, we’re trying to change up defenses,” Farias said. “We’ve always played man-to-man. That’s what we’ve done for the last couple of years. But just to get a little bit of variety — our bench is not as deep as it’s been — so I have to throw in a little zone. So that’s where I felt we needed a little more development.”
The Patriots spread the ball around in the win. Senior forward and Florida Gators signee Taliyah Wyche, the reigning Sun Sentinel Broward County small-schools co-player of the year, led the team with 16 points and had four blocks. Senior Daniella Aronsky scored 10 points, juniors Sydney Shaw had nine points, junior Joey Delancy had eight points and sophomore Gaby Dumas scored nine points. Senior Isabella Reynolds led Archbishop McCarthy with 10 points.
“It’s easier for us because they can’t just stop one person because we have players all around,” Wyche said. “We literally have everybody on the court that can play so they can’t just focus on one person.”