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Cobras' Historic Run Takes Them To Eustis

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By CRISTINA LEDRA, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 14, 2008

Hudson's bus ride home from its district semifinal win against Springstead last week was rocking. The Cobras had officially become the most successful boys team in the school's history by making it to the region quarterfinals.

"It was amazing to be the first team from Hudson to make it to the region playoffs," Hudson senior guard Tyler Hooten said. "It's always special to be a part of something that's never been done before."

But all that celebration has become somewhat of an afterthought, at least for now, because Hudson's season isn't done yet.

Tonight the Cobras (15-13) travel to Eustis for the Class 4A-Region 2 quarterfinals.

This level of the playoffs may be unfamiliar to Hudson's program, but the Cobras aren't expecting Eustis to be.

"If we play well we're going to win," Hudson coach Jason Vetter said. "They're not as good as Ridgewood and Land O' Lakes so it's nothing we haven't seen many times before."

In addition to playing Ridgewood and Land O' Lakes, two of the better teams in the area, Hudson scheduled teams like Melbourne Florida Air, Lecanto, Wauchula Hardee and Jesuit in preparation for the playoffs.

The X factor in this could be how the Cobras react to being in a spirited environment like Eustis. Vetter said as long as his players can keep their composure, they should have a good game.

The other issue Hudson would like to resolve is its offense, which struggled in the district championship against Pasco.

"We took care of the ball, we played really well defensively," Vetter said. "Offensively we were horrible."

Vetter says the Cobras missed a lot of easy layups and for the third time this season, Pasco beat them in the exact same way.

"We played with them the whole time and in the fourth quarter we had one little spurt where we had a lot of turnovers and they got a lot of points off of it," Hudson senior guard Jarrod Branco said.

What also didn't help the offense was that Branco was playing with a sprained ankle. He said it didn't bother him that much once he got it warmed up.

But the Cobras are expecting Eustis to be a lot like Pasco in that the team will be athletic and looking to get a lot of points off the fast break. Hudson is just hoping the outcome is different with Eustis than it was three times against the Pirates.

"We have to get better at late-game execution," Hooten said. "We can't turn the ball over against good teams. We've got to watch our turnovers and if we do that we'll do well."

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