Pinellas Park's Upset Win May be Turning Point

Get ready for the district tournament. That's what most basketball coaches want to do. Wins are nice, but getting a team ready to play for a postseason run is often a high school basketball coach's goal.

Jon Cabino is no different. The boys basketball coach has watched his team mired in a six-game losing streak. That streak ended with an impressive 60-56 upset for Northeast on the road this week.

One of the first things out of Cabino's mouth after the game was about being ready for the district tournament.

"We needed it, we needed it," Cabino said of the win. "It was just a tough stretch of games we went through. I told [the team] this was a game where we had to get back on track.

"Hopefully we can start peaking for the districts."

If the Patriots play like they did against Northeast, they may just do some damage.

In playing a team with one of the top players in the Tampa Bay area -- Andres Sanchez, Pinellas Park struggled most of the night just to stay even. But that was the problem for Northeast. The Patriots hung within striking distance until Pinellas Park's defense finally wore down Northeast late in the game. Then, the Patriots took advantage.

Pinellas Park held Northeast to seven points in the final eight minutes.

"We were running a zone defense most of the night and we wanted to run a zone to see what they would do," Cabino said. "So when we went to a man-to-man defense in the fourth quarter, I just think they were out of sync. They couldn't get into a rhythm."

Corey Edwards recovered a loose ball and fed Cornelius Collins for a layup that put the Patriots on top for good with 21 seconds left in the game.

"I didn't try to pay any attention to the score," said Edwards, who led the Patriots with 15 points. "I just tried to play hard and get my team back in the game."

Cabino was quite happy with how his players never threw in the towel, despite not leading until the final moments of the game.

"They fought. They fought. They fought. They fought," Cabino said. "We were down by as many as 12 and we fought and we stayed within reach and we finally got some shots and got some stops.

"This is a huge win."