White Tigers show their roar in winning SIAA title
Central Pointe Christian Academy, a small Kissimmee school with 283 students in grades 9-12, wasn’t known in high school basketball circles three years ago, much less to college basketball coaches.
But the White Tigers are on recruiting radars now, and on Sunday night they won the championship of one of the most talent-laden high school leagues in America.
CPCA, led by four players who have played for Puerto Rican youth national teams and three others who have represented Sweden, Mali and the Dominican Republic, rallied in the final two minutes to score a 68-63 victory over top-seeded but shorthanded West Oaks Academy of Orlando to claim the Sunshine Independent Athletic Association championship.
“It’s hard to even believe we did this,” said CPCA coach Richie Dalmau, a former Puerto Rican pro and Olympian. “Three years ago we got beat by 40-something points by one of the SIAA teams. Our guys kept working hard to get better over the past three years. They believed in the process.”
West Oaks (26-7), which is ranked No. 25 nationally by ESPN, started the showdown with just seven players and finished with four on the floor.
Selton Miguel, the SIAA regular-season MVP, was sidelined due to a fractured right thumb suffered in a Saturday semifinal win.
Standout West Oaks junior A.J. Neal and 6-foot-9 CPCA senior Jonathan Aybar were both ejected eight minutes to the game after they tussled underneath one basket. And the Flame later lost their second- and thirdleading scorers when AJ Staton fouled out with 7:20 go to after posting a gamehigh 23 points and Jadrian Tracey (19 points) drew his fifth and final foul with 1:08 remaining and Central Pointe leading 61-60.
Somehow, the Flame managed to stay in a game that see-sawed back and forth at the Orange County Public Schools Academic Center for Excellence campus. It was watched by UCF coach Johnny Dawkins and Knights assistant Kevin Norris, plus several other college coaches as part of a crowd that filled almost every seat in the downtown gymnasium.
CPCA, which improved to 25-7, was down by four with just over two minutes to go but scored eight straight points thanks to clutch plays by game MVP Ramses Melendez and savvy senior point guard Luis Rolon.
Melendez, a 6-foot-6 junior standout, swished a clutch 3-point shot to pull the White Tigers to within 60-59 with 2:01 remaining. Central Pointe got a stop and Rolon drew three defenders with a dribble-drive and dished to Melendez for a dunk that gave his team the lead.
Rolon drew a charge to foul out Tracey and then again drove into the lane and passed to wide-open sharpshooter Victor Rosa, who made a corner 3-point shot for a 64-60 lead that proved too much for West Oaks to overcome.
Melendez ended the game with a two-handed breakaway dunk to finish with 20 points. It was his third slam to to with six rebounds and two blocked shots, and he took the charge that fouled out Staton.
Ali Dibba, a junior from Sweden via Africa, scored 16 points and Rosa had 12 for CPCA.
Kobe Gibbs had 12 rebounds for West Oaks, which won 86-82 and 93-85 against Central Pointe in regular-season games.
“I’m for sure not happy about it,” Flame coach Kenny Gillion said of the loss. “The foul trouble killed us. But that’s SIAA basketball. Central Pointe is a great team.”
Both teams are scheduled to participate in the Grind Session World Championship tournament, March 9-13, in Benton, Ky.