Pine Crest takes title with comeback in 2 overtimes
LAKELAND
Amen Thompson walked to Pine Crest’s bench with a blank stare in the final minute of overtime at the Class 3A championship. He was all but resigned to defeat, the Panthers down eight with less than 45 seconds to go after blowing a 15-point second-half lead.
Ausar Thompson and Leo Ghiloni sat on the bench, helpless and on the verge of tears. Both forwards had fouled out in the fourth quarter and they could only watch while Alachua Santa Fe stormed from behind against shorthanded Pine Crest.
Amen Thompson put his arm around his twin brother. He couldn’t possibly have envisioned the comeback the Panthers were about to spring to win 90-83 in double overtime. “I’m sorry, brodie,” he said.
“I did not think we were going to win,” Amen Thompson said.
Pine Crest’s six-man rotation was down to four. The Panthers’ 11-point lead in the last five minutes was gone. Santa Fe was already celebrating on the other side of the RP Funding Center, less than a minute from pulling off a stunning state-championship upset.
Thompson, who finished with 43 points, was out of sorts. He missed three straight threes, four straight shots and 1 of 2 free throws. He needed a lifeline.
“Their coach had to tell them to stop celebrating,” he said, “so I finally got into my groove on the three.”
Thompson hit a pull-up three-pointer to cut the Raiders’ lead to 73-68. Santa Fe missed two free throws. Thompson sliced right back to the rim and dropped in a finger roll. The lead was down to 73-70. The Raiders missed two more free throws.
With 12.9 seconds left, Thompson looked into the crowd for his father and brother. He asked them what to do and they told him to shoot the three. He stepped into a pull-up again and drew a foul.
Thompson rattled in one free throw and then another. His third clanged off the rim and wing Enos Carpio leaped for the rebound. He turned and shot and his floater rimmed out, but Santa Fe couldn’t find Thompson. He rose and tapped the ball back to the rim, tumbling back to the ground through contact.
He missed the first, but made the second and Pine Crest (21-1) forced double overtime.
Thompson only made one field goal in the second overtime. The Panthers’ core of four seniors
— plus seldom-used forward Luke Fatovic — scored 11 of 17 points in the final four minutes to win Pine Crest’s fourth boys’ basketball state title.
“It was a team effort,” forward Isaiah Ramsay said.
The Panthers transformed back into a national power this year because of the Thompsons. The twins moved to Florida from Oakland, California, before their eighth-grade year and landed at Pine Crest because they wanted to find somewhere they could play varsity in middle school. They started from Day 1 and took their lumps in the same district as University, which won back-to-back state titles in 2018 and 2019, led by Vernon Carey Jr. and Scottie Barnes.
This year, the twins combined to average nearly 45 points per game and positioned the Panthers as the No. 11 team in the nation, according to MaxPreps. With five minutes left Saturday, they had Pine Crest cruising to a state championship, with a double-digit lead and a combined 42 points.
With 4:55 left, Ausar Thompson dove for a loose ball and heard a whistle blow. The Panthers started to celebrate. They assumed they were getting the ball back with an 57-46 lead. Thompson got decked from behind, so he was stunned when heard a referee say, “Zero, white.”
He leaped to his feet and streaked across the court. After 20 points, the star wing thought he fouled out. The referee actually meant to call the foul on guard Ben Brodsky, but Thompson couldn’t have known, so he freaked out. The officials handed him a technical foul. Now he was actually done.
“I can’t think. I’m wondering how I can get a foul after I got hit,” he said. “I saw some cameras pointed at me. You’re probably going to catch snot running out my nose or something. I was bawling.”
With Thompson out of the game, the Raiders (21-6) had a path to a comeback. They scored six straight points and did all they could to get the ball out of Amen Thompson’s hands before he even crossed half court. Santa Fe guard Dontrell Jenkins exploded for 31 points without Thompson there to guard him.
With 12 seconds to go, the Raiders took the lead for the first time when Santa Fe shooting guard Cayvian Wakeley drilled a three with Ramsay’s hand in his face. Amen Thompson inbounded, got the ball right back and charged down the court to draw a foul. He went 1 of 2 at the free-throw line and Pine Crest forced overtime at 64-64.