A mediocre season ended with a lack-luster final game as the boys’ varsity basketball team got bounced in the first round of the playoffs, losing to the Cocoa Tigers 66-29.

The first round of the playoffs marked the battle of the bigs as Cats’ star center Jake Dimond battled against Tigers’ forward/center Tracy Davis.  Unfortunately for the Cats, Dimond, who struggled with back issues all season long, was a relative non-factor, only scoring 8 points in the game.  Davis on the other hand lead all scorers in the game with 21 points.

With Dimond’s condition rendering him less potent, the Cats were lead by junior forward Chris Mikulus who recorded 13 points on the night.

For Mikulus, it was the team’s defensive execution and mentality that lead to the Cats’s loss.

“Our offensive execution was actually pretty good but Cocoa just had a lot of shooters,” he said.  “I swear that’s all those kids do, just shoot, and defensively we just couldn’t get out and stop them from shooting.  Also mentally I don’t think we were all there. We always come into Cocoa kind of intimidated even though we have competed with Cocoa before, but we were just scared and so we weren’t all there.”

The Cats wrap up their season with a 5-23 record.  Plagued by injuries, the Cats struggled to overcome adversities all season long and eventually fell short.  With a young squad, the Cats have a bright future, but for now, the Cats have to a lot to work on to improve for next season.