St. Thomas Aquinas reaches title game
St. Thomas Aquinas didn’t hold a lead for the first 27 minutes and 13 seconds of Thursday’s Class 6A state semifinal against Punta Gorda Charlotte.
With 4:47 left in the fourth quarter, they seized the lead and never let it go.
The Raiders punched their ticket to the Class 6A state title game with a dominant fourth quarter, beating the Tarpons 62-48 in Lakeland.
“I feel like it’s a testament to our schedule,” St. Thomas coach Oliver Berens said. “Even though our schedule wasn’t that diverse, it had Ely four times on it and it had American Heritage once. So when you get to play two of the top teams in the county all year — it makes up almost 30 percent of our games — you really get a lot of experience. And I think that we’ve been in adverse situations before and we’ve always showed heart.”
St. Thomas Aquinas struggled to sink shots in the first half and much of the third quarter. The Raiders shot about 26 percent from the field in the first half. Charlotte appeared to take advantage of St. Thomas’ struggles, getting out to an 11-point lead in the third quarter.
“We just were never able to get into a rhythm, and I think we were allowing one side of the floor to impact the other side of the floor and we just couldn’t put together a string of stops and get into offensive flow and transition,” Berens said. “Once we were able to pick up the pace and the intensity and get some stops on the defensive side of he ball, we were able to push in transition on offense and get going.”
But the Raiders battled back late in the third quarter, cutting that 11-point deficit to only three points by the end of the third quarter.
With senior Samara Spencer and sophomore Karina Gordon leading the way, St.
Thomas briefly tied the game before falling behind early in the fourth quarter. Gordon knocked down a pair of free throws with 4:47 to give the Raiders the lead for the first time in the game.
From that point on, St. Thomas could not miss. After taking the lead, the Raiders outscored the Tarpons 17-4. St. Thomas outscored Charlotte 26-9 in the final eight minutes.
Spencer, an Arkansas signee, and Gordon led St. Thomas with 24 points each. Gordon tied with junior Jada Green for the team lead with nine rebounds. Spencer poured in her two-dozen despite being scoreless in the game’s first 8:56.
“[Gordon and Spencer] had a special second half,” Berens said. “I don’t know what else to say. They just hit shots, made plays and just had great determination and heart.”
The Raiders will face Apopka Wekiva in the Class 6A title game at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday. St. Thomas has never won a championship in girls basketball and is 0-2 in state title games. The Raiders fell to St. Cloud in the Class 4A state championship game and lost to Tampa Bay Tech in overtime in the Class 8A championship game in 2019.
“It means a lot, obviously,” Berens said. “We really want to avenge our loss from two years ago and bring home that first state championship to St. Thomas Aquinas. I think a big difference between this year and two years ago is two years ago, after the state semifinal, we were really overjoyed. It was a blowout game and we played great.
“Today, we didn’t play that well, but we picked up in the second half, and hopefully, we carry that momentum into the state championship.”