Montverde motors to 4th national-final win

It was raining 3s Saturday afternoon at Christ the King Regional High School in New York City.

Montverde Academy canned 11 3-pointers — eight in the second half — to run away from University School of Fort Lauderdale, 76-58, in an all-Florida final at the nationally televised 2018 GEICO High School Basketball Nationals.

Montverde, the consensus No. 1 program in the country, finishes unbeaten at 35-0. The Eagles won their record fourth GEICO Nationals title in the 10-year history of the event.

FHSAA Class 5A state champion University School, which came into the tournament ranked No. 2 by USA Today, finishes 33-2.

National Player of the Year a Duke signee, led Montverde with 25 points and 15 rebounds. Barrett was named the MVP of the tournament.

“This is the cherry on top of everything that has happened during my high school career and it means a lot,” said Barrett.

Georgia Tech signee who migrated from Class 9A state champ Oak Ridge to Montverde as a senior, drilled five 3-pointers and finished with 21 points in the victory. (Gonzaga) added 15 points and former University School 7-foot-1 center had 9 rebounds for the Eagles.

Montverde coach praised Koprivica for the job he did on 6-10 junior All-American who was held to 5-of-16 shooting and 12 points to go along with 10 rebounds. He had but 4 points in the first half.

“Vernon is going to be a star in the NBA,” Boyle said. “Look at him [Koprivica] cause problems for him with his size and moving his feet.”

Montverde shot 31-of-61 from the field, including 11-of-24 from 3-point range.

trey in the fourth quarter gave Montverde its biggest lead of the game at 70-44.

Sophomore led University School with 24 points and 10 rebounds. Junior All-American

struggled, making just 5 of his 16 shot attempts to finish with 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Joining Barrett on the all-tournament team were Montverde guard

Carey, Barnes and of Lone Peak, Utah. Montverde has made the Nationals finals seven of the past nine years.

Area athletes got in on some heated action at the Florida Relays track-and-field meet at UF this weekend.

Poinciana senior won the girls 100-meter hurdles in an area alltime top-10 time of 14.26 seconds on Friday. The First Academy sophomore

fresh off a starting basketball role, was runner-up in the boys 110 hurdles with a 14.07 time that puts him in the area top 10.

Freedom senior the reigning 4A state 1,600 champ, ran the metric mile in 4 minutes, 13.83 seconds to finish a close second behind Estero’s

(4:13.46). Doyle’s time ranks No. 8 on the area all-time list.

West Orange junior long-jumped 23 feet, 31⁄2 inches to win that event head of Timber Creek’s

(23-13⁄4). Lake Mary’s won the girls 3,200 with a 10:51.32 time that ranks No. 2 among Florida ninth-graders this year.

Winter Park junior was runner-up in the girls pole vault (11-33⁄4).

Lake Brantley was second in the boys distance medley relay at 10:37.81.

Seminole was second in the girls 4x100 at 46.74.

Two undefeated boys teams, Olympia (11-0) and Lake Mary (9-0), will match up at the United States Tennis Association’s state-of-the-art National Campus at Lake Nona on Monday.

Olympia coach said the home match for the Titans will be played on the collegiate courts (7 through 12) at the USTA Campus, putting the teams on a stage where top college teams, including FSU, UF and UCF, have played matches since the 100-court complex opened Jan. 2, 2017. Match time is 4:30 p.m.

Admission is free to the public for a rematch of tight matches the two teams played the past two years. Darkness brought a close to a 3-3 standoff in 2016. Last year Olympia pulled out a 4-3 regular season win over the Rams.

The boys No. 1 singles match should feature two top training partners, Olympia junior and Lake Mary senior

Bianchi rallied to beat Gorshein 8-5 in a pro set last year.