Senior guard Godfrey leads Country Day to 8th state title
There was a moment in the Class 3A championship when it finally seemed like Miami Country Day might run out of bodies.
The Spartans’ leading scorer hasn’t played in a month because of an injury, another of their stars didn’t play all year because of one and, with about half of the second quarter left to play Saturday, Miami Country
Day beckoned another one of its few reliable, proven scorers back to the bench because of foul trouble.
It could have been the moment the Spartans’ title hopes unraveled. Instead, it was the moment they pulled away for their 5438 win.
Miami Country Day hasn’t hoisted state-championship trophies in 10 years just because of a few individuals. The Spartans are a machine, and they kept chugging to power past Sarasota Cardinal Mooney.
“Honestly, I don’t think I believed,” coach Ochiel Swaby said, thinking back to when junior wing Kayla Nelms got hurt in January. “When you look at our stats, she averaged about almost 20 and then nobody else averaged eight, so I’m thinking to myself, ‘Where in the world are we going to get any offense from in these games that are tough games?’ ”
Miami Country Day closed the first half on an 18-6 run, turning a 13-13 tie into a 31-19 halftime lead and eventually a runaway. Star point guard Kristina Godfrey, who signed with the FAU Owls last year, transformed from a facilitator into a scorer — something she has had to do since Nelms hurt her hand last month — and erupted for 20 points to put the Spartans (25-7) back on top after a nine-year run of final fours was snapped last season.
Miami Country Day’s eight girls’ basketball state titles are the third most in Florida High School Athletic Association history and all have come since 2014.
Godfrey has been part of four of those, winning her first when she was in seventh grade, and she ignited the run the Spartans used to win another championship in Lakeland.
When eighth-grade guard Jalynn Belton headed to the bench with two fouls in the middle of the second quarter, Miami Country Day was stuck in an 11-11 tie with Cardinal Mooney. Belton had been the Spartans’ leading scorer in the opening 12 minutes and, as the score suggested, it was hard for just about anyone to generate any offense.
Godfrey got her first bucket on a breakaway, an easy layup off a steal, and the Cougars (21-6) answered
right back. She then responded herself with a three-pointer, then jumped a passing lane for a steal and score to put Miami Country Day up 18-13. The Spartans never trailed again and Godfrey nailed a corner three at the first-half buzzer to send Miami Country Day into halftime with a double-digit lead.
“I kind of just took over, just knowing that I needed to be a leader in this moment,” said Godfrey, who also had nine rebounds and two steals. “I trusted my left hand. It worked out well.”
Cardinal Mooney never got the Spartans’ lead back
down to single digits. The closest the Cougars came was early in the fourth quarter, down 39-29, and Godfrey responded again. She ended a nearly quarterlong scoring drought by making a driving hook shot, then got another breakaway layup to nudge Miami Country Day’s lead back to 43-29 and keep Cardinal Mooney out of reach. All but two of her points came after Belton went to the bench with her second foul.
As the final seconds ticked away, Godfrey dribbled out the clock, turned to face the intimate crowd of supporters who had ventured from Miami
to the RP Funding Center, slammed the ball to the ground as the finally buzzer sounded and yelled, “Let’s go!” Her teammates mobbed her, and they all jumped up and down as one mass on the floor of George Jenkins Arena.
“This one feels the best,” Godfrey said.
There was a running joke — or maybe it was more serious — that Godfrey could never win the big one as the go-to player. She was in middle school when she won her first two titles and still an underclassman for her third. Swaby constantly pestered her and Nelms about how they had to prove themselves this year.
Godfrey, who didn’t even average nine points per game this season and only cracked 20 one other time, got her chance in the postseason and came through.
“This was the best I’ve seen her play,” said guard Sofia Mendez, who was the only other Spartan in double figures with 10 points and also had two steals.
Godfrey paraded the trophy around the court, posed for photos, and every once in a while would giddily hop up and down with whichever teammate happened to be closest by.
Next week, she has plans to go meet with a doctor. Last season, she suffered a pair of stress fractures and never quite let them heal properly. “This kid has been playing on bum wheels all year,” Swaby said and acknowledged it probably kept her from being quite the player she was a junior, when she averaged more than 14 points per game.
He didn’t take it as an excuse, though. He challenged her to carry Miami Country Day in the way a Division I-bound player should.
“This man was bugging me all year. You can’t win a meaningful game with you as a leader,” Godfrey said, impersonating her coach in a mocking tone. “It just feels great to prove him wrong.”