Dakara Merthie, Dylan Foster earn MVPs at Cure All-Stars Basketball games

Foster scored 16 points as the Warriors raced past the Soldiers 101-93. Pictures | Orlando Health Cure All-Stars Basketball Games In the girls game, the Warriors trailed by five points with two minutes left, when Bailey Travis of Horizon nailed a 3-pointer and then they applied the defense. The Warriors got a stop on the next possession and Merthie tied the game with a runner in the lane.

Tight defense by the Warriors on an in-bounds play, with sideline coverage applied by Travis, forced a five-second call with 33 seconds remaining. The Soldiers worked the ball around the perimeter and Timber Creek’s Laila Allen fired a 3-pointer that rimmed off long and into the hands of Horizon’s Zoe Corjay on the other side of the court. Corjay gathered the rebound and drilled a 3-pointer with 15 seconds remaining for the game-winner.

Merthie, who also won the girls 3-point shooting contest, hit 4 3-pointers in the game and said she wished she’d had a couple of those 3s a week ago at the state championships, where Ocoee lost 31-26 in the semifinals against Winter Haven She said it was fun to play with players who are usually the opposition during the season. “It feels great to play my last, kinda high school-situation game with great girls from around our area playing together,” said Merthie, who will play at College of Charleston next season. “It was fun.

Instead of competing with them I actually got to play with them and enjoy it and have fun because usually we are going neck to neck in different situations, so this was fun. ” Merthie’s Ocoee teammate led the way for the Soldiers squad with 17 points, while Lake Highland Prep’s Eryn Griffin added 9 points and Boone’s Naima Durandisse had 7. For the winners, Travis added 7 points and Corjay, Madison Perez of Timber Creek and Valeria Munoz of Lake Highland had 5 each.