Second half surge propels NWF to 63-59 victory over Eastern Florida

NICEVILLE, FL - The Raiders opened up their post-season campaign on Wednesday in the quarterfinal round of the FCSAA State/NJCAA Region VIII Tournament against Eastern Florida State College.  Both teams entered the tournament having earned shares of conference championships in the regular season, and both teams were fully aware of the magnitude of the contest for further national implications.  After a sluggish start for the Raiders thanks to tough defense from the Titans, NWF settled in during the second half to outlast Eastern Florida 63-59 to advance to the semifinals on Friday.

For most of the first half, Northwest Florida looked like a team that had to shake off some rust from their 11-day break between games.  The Raiders shot an abysmal 11% (1-9) from the 3-point line the first twenty minutes and looked out of sorts until the 3-minute mark in the first half.  That is when NWF seemed to capture some much needed momentum going into the locker room with a mini-run that close the Raider deficit to two points in intermission (31-29).

Thankfully for the Raiders, that aforementioned momentum carried over into the second half.  The ball movement was crisp, the defensive intensity was ratcheted up, and the 3-ball started falling.  NWF completely reversed their shooting fortunes by draining 62.5% of their 3-point attempts and tallied an overall field goal percentage of 55% in the second half.  One area that was not kind to the Raiders was the charity stripe, where NWF shot a meager 43% (7-16) for the game and missed opportunities at the line nearly allowed a late comfortable lead to vanish in the final minutes. 

The vast majority of the game, the Raiders rode the broad shoulders of sophomore Issa Muhammad, who scored a game-high 22 points and grabbed 10 rebounds.  Other Raiders in double figures were Deshanwndre Washington with 11 points and Brennan Rigsby added 10. 

Northwest Florida now advances to the semifinals where they will play Chipola College on Friday, March 4 .  The contest between the two co-champions of the Panhandle Conference will tip-off at 1:00pm.

For more information on Northwest Florida State athletics, visit NWFRaiders.com or follow @NWFRaiders on Twitter.