Miami High’s Sam Baumgarten, Country Day’s Swaby are Girls’ Basketball Coaches of Year

No two programs have owned Miami girls’ basketball for the last decade like Miami High and Miami Country Day.

After typically great seasons for both schools, their coaches are the Miami Herald’s Miami-Dade County Girls’ Basketball Coaches of the year.

Stingarees coach Sam Baumgarten guided Miami High to a sixth straight final four, while Spartans coach Ochiel Swaby got Miami Country Day back to the mountaintop with an eighth state title in 10 years after they failed to even make the state semifinals in 2022. As much as both are fixtures in the last weekend of the season, both the Stingarees and Spartans had challenges to get there.

For the second time in three years, Miami High lost a reigning Miami-Dade County Girls’ Basketball Player of the Year to graduation and had to entirely overhaul its identity.

The Stingarees’ offense went from being run through a ball-dominant point guard to going through the post, where forward Joelle Wilson stepped up from role player to go-to scorer. Their defense -- always Miami High’s calling card -- played more zone than ever and it nearly let them knock off Orlando Dr. Phillips, the No. 17 team in MaxPreps’ national rankings, in the Class 7A semifinals last month.

“We’ve had to change our style three, four times already,” Baumgarten said. “It’s challenging for us as a coaching staff. But we actually like it because everybody wants to play a particular style or be called a system coach, but it challenges us to have to change our system, and we really enjoy that because it lets us be creative and not just be stagnant.”

Miami Country Day’s biggest challenge came in the middle of the season, right before the playoffs began.

Wing Kayla Nelms was the only Spartan to average more than 10 points per game and her season ended with an injury in practice a few days before the District 14-Class 3A tournament began. Swaby admitted it was a major reason for doubt -- he was unsure where Miami Country Day would get enough scoring from -- and yet the Spartans rolled through the postseason, winning each of their final five games by at least 16 points following a four-point loss to rival Westminster Academy in the District 14-3A championship.

“When Kayla got hurt, I’m like, Hell, we’ve struggled to score all year in meaningful games. Where the heck is this scoring going to come from?” Swaby said. “Once Kayla got hurt, what happened was it actually freed up kids. It freed up their willingness to take shots without consequence.

“I liked the potential of the team all year.”