With 4 new starters and an assistant coach in charge, Pines Charter wins 1st state title
LAKELAND
Pembroke Pines Charter was used to best-laid plans going awry. Pembroke Pines was one of the topranked teams in Florida last year because of its dead-eye three-point shooting and its championship shot unraveled in the state title game when those shots stopped falling.
The Jaguars knew it would be a tall task to return to Lakeland in
2021. Three of its four top scorers were seniors, so Pembroke Pines went to the drawing board to come up with a new plan — one good enough to win the Class 5A championship Saturday, but only after adjusting and readjusting on the way back to the final four.
“We got on that bus, we all hopped on a group call and we talked about it. We said, What do we have to do to get back here?” said assistant coach Paul Brown, who handled game-day coaching duties this year. “Then COVID hit.”
Guard Geoffrey Sprouse took the leap from complementary player to star and three new additions injected life into the Jaguars, who only brought back three rotation players from their runner-up team in 2020. They had to learn to play together quickly — Pembroke Pines only played 16 games because of multiple COVID-19 shutdowns — and they had to do it without the usual input from coach Dave Roca, who slid into a backseat role because of virus concerns.
Once February hit, the Jaguars, ranked No. 33 in the nation by MaxPreps, turned into the juggernaut Roca and Brown knew they could be. Pembroke
Pines finished the season with seven straight wins and capped a trying year with an 83-68 win against Fort Walton Beach Choctawhatchee to win its first boys’ basketball state title.
“You’re always personnel dependent,” Roca said. “We felt that, with the team this year, we could get here. We understood, but it’s not about talent.
“It’s going to be about chemistry every single time and we understood that chemistry in January when we were really jelling, playing for one another.”
The Jaguars (13-3) took a 6-4 lead with 6:42 left in the first quarter and never trailed again. Guard Kolby King unloaded for 15 points in the first and Pembroke Pines blew open a 23-7 lead late in the period. Choctawhatchee (26-3) managed to cut the Jagaurs’ lead to 43-40 early in the second half before Pembroke Pines pulled away for a lopsided win at the RP Funding Center.
King finished with 27 points, Caelum Ethridge scored 17 and grabbed seven rebounds, and fellow wing Elijah Wyche added 13 with seven rebounds and six assists. Those three newcomers gave Sprouse the help he need, as the junior scored 14 points and handed out eight assists.
Forward Brandon Armentaros — another returner, albeit one who didn’t play as a freshman last season — also cracked double figures with 10 points.
“It was tough. We had one of the best records in the county, everyone thought we were going to win and we lost. We let a lot of people down,”
Sprouse said. “I just knew that I basically had to recruit my guy Kolby. I had to get more guys.”
The coronavirus pandemic meant there was never much of a chance in the offseason to formally work out together and Roca quickly decided he wouldn’t guide them in the way a coach normally would.
Early in the pandemic, the godmother of Roca’s wife died from the virus. Roca has four children and a 77-year-old nanny, and he decided he wouldn’t risk bringing the coronavirus home.
“For every passion there’s a price,” Roca said Thursday. “I wasn’t willing to pay the price.”
Roca handed the keys to Brown and shifted into a supervisory role. He’s now “Pat Riley,” he likes to joke, usually watching practices or games from a lonely perch somewhere in the bleachers, with his slicked-back hair clearly reminiscent of the Miami Heat president. Usually, he texts his observations down to assistant coaches Mike Diaz and Michael Opalka, and they relay his mid-game messages to Brown.