South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Doing it all again
St. Thomas Aquinas, Blanche Ely meet once more in Big 8 finals
PLANTATION — The Tigers left no doubt Friday night.
They want to defend their Big
8 title.
Blanche Ely rolled to a 92-45 victory over Western in the Big
8 semifinals at South Plantation High, earning a trip back to the title game after winning the tournament for the first time last year. The Tigers faced St. Thomas Aquinas in the championship game Saturday night in a rematch of last year’s final.
“It’s just one of those things where whenever you step on the court, you want to win and you want to play well,” Tigers coach J.R. McNabb said. “It’s important. It’s just like the state championship for us, defending the title.”
Blanche Ely got out to a dominant lead early in the game, going on a 14-0 run to start the game. Junior Michiyah Simmons led the scoring early, notching 18 points in the first half. Simmons left the game with a minor injury, but McNabb said it was not serious.
“She’ll be all right,” McNabb said. “She’s been dealing with this for a couple of years now. It’s one of those things where she’ll go home, get some treatment. She’ll be fine.”
Other Ely players picked up the pace with Simmons out.
Senior standout and Miami Hurricanes signee Ja’Leah Williams led the team with 20 points. Junior Zaria Blake had 18 points, junior Mya Kone added 16 and freshman Janessa Kelly 12.
Taja Stephens led Western with
26 points.
“That’s one of our biggest things with our style of play: We try to make sure it’s balanced,” McNabb said. “Ja’Leah can go on any team and lead and be the bulk scorer, but it’s easy to guard that type of team. All of our girls have the capability of putting up large numbers.
“With us being balanced scoring, I think it’s hard to game-plan. And everybody’s happy when everybody’s scoring.”
ST THOMAS AQUINAS 67, DILLARD 30:
Like Blanche Ely, the Raiders cruised to a win in their Big 8 semifinal Friday.
St. Thomas got out to an early
lead and outscored Dillard 21-4 in the second quarter en route to a 67-30 victory.
“Definitely our best game of the season,” Raiders coach Oliver Berens said. “We want to be playing our best basketball right now, and I feel like we are. We’re pushing the ball in transition with incredible tempo. We finished at a high rate today and we played great defense.”
St. Thomas featured a balanced offense on Friday. Junior Karina Gordon led the Raiders with 16 points. Right behind her was junior Maya Williams with 15. Senior and Arkansas signee Samara Spencer both notched 14 points.
“Karina’s been great for us all year, scoring the ball; so has Sam,” Berens said. “Maya stepped up in a huge spot . ... I thought everybody played well. Jada [Green] played great today. I thought it was a complete team effort.”
Aquinas will take on Ely for the second time this year. The Raiders fell to the Tigers 57-46 in their season opener Jan. 6 and have lost four straight games to Ely, including last season’s district title game and regional semifinal.
“Ely’s a great team,” Berens said. “They’re very well-coached; we know that. We just have to execute and not turn the ball over.”