NEPTUNE BEACH - Orange Park High basketball had one good night and one bad night in their second-place finish at the Fletcher High Christmas Tournament with a strong 61-43 win over Atlantic Coast High in game one, but a 52-29 thumping by host Fletcher in the tournament final on Saturday.
"We forgot to get off the bus," said Orange Park coach Derek Kurnitsky, who saw his Raiders do just about everything right on Friday against Atlantic Coast, but lamented a poor performance on his and his player's part on Saturday after Fletcher used a fast-paced, wicked passing attack to befuddle the normally responsive Raiders. "I take the blame. Have to take some time to get back on track. Our schedule doesn't give us time for days off."
Fletcher, 9-4, won their opener with a 56-46 win over Fernandina Beach.
Against Atlantic Coast, Orange Park got 13 points from Tim Smith to take the win, but Fletcher rolled out a 12-2 first quarter to stymie the Raider attack quickly.
As the game progressed, center Quayshawn Blot seemed destined to bring the Raiders back with numerous down-low turnaround jumpers and layups and a handful of rebounds to layups to get the Raiders within 10 of Fletcher late in the fourth quarter.
Orange Park, 6-6, returns to regular season play after a two-day Jan. 3-4 Raiderdome Classic Tournament with 12 teams scheduled to play.

RaiderDome Classic
January 3-4 at Orange Park High School

January 3

5 p.m. Rutherford vs. St. Augustine
6:30 p.m. Leon vs. Orange Park

January 4
11 a.m. Middleburg vs. Atlantic Coast
12:45 p.m. St. Augustine vs. Leon
2:30 p.m. Fletcher vs. Rutherford
4:15 p.m. Ponte Vedra vs. Buchholz
6 p.m. Columbia vs. Orange Park
7:30 p.m. Creekside vs. Providence

Orange Park returns to regular season play with Oakleaf visiting the Raiderdome on January 7.

More boys basketball

Oakleaf, 9-3, competed in the Hitchcock Classic Tournament in Alachua and finished with an opening loss to Jordan Christian Prep out of Lakeland (77-60), a win over Trenton 62-49 with a Sunday game against Suwannee High School.
Oakleaf guard Jelani Wright had 24 points against Jordan Christian Prep with five rebounds and two steals plus two rebounds.
Against Trenton, Tyler Owens led Oakleaf with 16 points, four rebounds, three steals with Danny Huffman adding 15 points and five rebounds.
Oakleaf gets Orange Park on January 7 with Fleming Island (9-3) on the road on January 10. Fleming Island last game was the Battle on the Island semifinal loss to Ponte Vedra, 66-59 with Sandalwood visiting Fleming Island on January 4.

Spartans in Arizona

St. Johns Country Day School (5-7) flew out to Meza, Arizona for some basketball action at the MESA Basketball Challenge and came away with a 53-38 win over Corona Del Sol of Tempe, Arizona with Camden Cooper scoring 22 points and Logan Reese adding 12. In game two, the Spartans lost 57-38 to Rancho Solano Prep (9-4) out of Scottsdale, Arizona, the Arizona state runner-up last year. The Spartans were set to play Monday, December 30.

Clay loses two
Clay High lost two Flagler Palm Coast tournament games to go to 2-9 with First Coast Christian winning 60-49 and Flagler Palm Coast winning 69-47.