Gulf coach gets what he wants from trip

By BART O'CONNELL

Gulf girls basketball coach Mike Quarto got what he wanted from his team's trip to Douglasville, Ga. - tough competition against quality teams. Still, the Bucs forgot to bring one thing back to New Port Richey: their perfect record.

As a result of Friday's 41-40 championship game loss to Carrollton, ranked fifth in Georgia's Class 5A, Quarto dubbed his team "the first loser" at the Kessler's Hoop Classic.

"Nothing good comes out of a loss," Quarto said. "We really shot ourselves in the foot. We were 10 of 22 from the free-throw line and missed a lot of easy shots under the basket."

Despite all the miscues, the Bucs did lead by as many as eight points in the game. But Carrollton made a comeback and kept the game close. The score was tied at 38 with less than 10 seconds to play. That's when the Trojans secured a long rebound, then hit a miraculous shot six feet behind the 3-point line to make it 41-38.

Although there was still 1.6 seconds to play, the entire Carrollton bench stormed the court, resulting in a technical foul. Gulf made both free throws, but could not hit a buzzer-beating shot for the win.

The Bucs (13-1, No. 6 in Class 4A) finished the tournament 2-1. Quarto said seniors Nicole Allison, Tiara Cook and Turquoise Sampson all played well, as did junior Dominique English. They will return to practice Wednesday, and play next Tuesday against River Ridge.

"We want to work on more individual stuff this week," Quarto said. "Just get back to the fundamentals. Those teams in Georgia are a lot more physical than we're used to, and it's good that we got a chance to play them."