Can mighty Metro stop Seminole’s surge?
The mighty Metro Conference has three of the four teams still playing in the North half of the Class 7A boys basketball playoffs bracket.
But can any of them stop the runaway train that is Seminole High?
The Seminoles (25-1) are on a 13-game winning streak entering Friday night’s Region 1 championship game at home against Ocoee (22-7), the regular-season winner of the Metro’s highly competitive West Division.
Seminole, with a small but speedy lineup fueled by stellar guards, has already rolled over two two talented teams from the Metro. The ’Noles won 76-48 against West Orange in last week’s quarterfinal round and dispatched Apopka 70-54 in Tuesday’s semifinal.
“I’ve been watching film for two days and you can see they have great athletes, some of the best I’ve seen,” Ocoee coach John “Sarge” Siers said Thursday. “They’ve lost [four] games in four years at home, so I think it’s going to be a great environment.
“Our guys are going to have to stay composed. We’ve got to control the tempo of the game because they’re so fast. And they’ll shoot it from anywhere.”
Seminole is 0-3 in region finals, all against Orange County Public School members of the Metro, since it made its only state tournament appearance in 1980. But this could be the best ’Noles team ever with senior guards LaDarron Cleveland, O’Shae Baker and Amaire Perkins leading the way.
Seminole would be No. 1 in the Florida High School Athletic Association’s Class 7A state power ratings had it not violated a scheduling rule that lowered its ranking. The ’Noles played a mostly-JV group as a fill-in for their December holiday tournament and had to count three losses that second group incurred for rating purposes.
West Orange coach Eric Jones said Seminole is “absolutely” a state championshipcaliber team.
“We knew they were going to press us and try to get out and run, but they were even more athletic than I thought,” Jones said. “They shot the ball extremely well and it seems like those three senior guards are just taking turns. They’re tough.”
The Region 2 final pits two Metro members against each other. Oak Ridge (20-8) plays at Windermere High (21-8) in a rematch of a regular-season game the Wolverines won 71-60 on Jan. 24.
“This will be a different game,” Windermere coach Mark Griseck said. “Their size advantage can hurt us. We got to rebound. And we can’t have turnovers, especially what I call pick-six turnovers that lead to layups or dunks.”
Region 2 has produced the past three large-class champions, with Kissimmee Osceola winning the 2017 and 2019 titles and Oak Ridge claiming the Class 9A crown in 2018. The 9A and 8A classes were eliminated this school year with the FHSAA condensing its championship classifications from nine to seven in hopes of increasing competitive balance and interest in state tournaments.
“I think it’s worked in that aspect,” Griseck said. “There were a lot of close games in the semifinal round and I think you truly do have the eight teams that are playing the best. I think the winner between us and Oak Ridge is probably going to be the fourth seed [for the final four].”
Seeding will be based on power ratings generated by MaxPreps that included all regular-season and district tournament games but not region play.
West Palm Beach Forest Hill (27-2) is rated No. 1 going into its Region 3 final at home against Lake Worth Park Vista (21-6), which won 48-44 on Tuesday against the team that was No. 2, Palm Beach Gardens Dwyer (23-5).
Ocoee would be at worst the second seed for the state tournament if it gets past Seminole.
Miramar (21-6), which is now third in the power-ranking pecking order, hosts the Region 4 final against Davie Western (18-7).
All region games are set to tip off at 7 p.m. Admission is $7. Winners advance to next week’s FHSAA state tournament at the RP Funding Center in Lakeland. time, but Seminole gave us more trouble with that than anybody,” said West Orange coach Eric Jones, whose team was throttled by the ’Noles last week. “They’re so fast. They were in the passing lanes.”
The fast pace of play is attributed to offseason conditioning. O’Shea Baker, a four-year starter who signed with Tennessee-Martin in football, said the rigorous workouts prepared players to match up against taller teams.
“They have a lot of size, but I know we’re more athletic than them,” Baker said. “We’re going to run them. They’re not going to be able to run with us. No team in Orange County presses like us.”
The last three years have ended in heartbreak for Seminole, but the ’Noles can rectify that Friday as Wynn looks to make the same kind of history that he missed out on as a player 40 years ago.
And maybe they can add another year besides 1980 to the banner.
“Just being a coach, it would mean a lot because that’s our goal just to keep adding on and adding on,” Wynn said. “And we look at [the banner] every now and then.
“When we first came in at the beginning of the season, we looked and said ‘Do we want 2020 up there?’ We’re trying to put something on that.”