STA’s Oliver Berens, NBP’s Gardner Michel are Broward Girls’ Basketball Coaches of Year

St. Thomas Aquinas and North Broward Prep both reached new heights in 2023.

The Raiders, just three years removed from their first state title, capped off a three-peat and staked a claim as the premier program in South Florida. North Broward won its first district title since 2011 and got further in the postseason than ever before.

It’s why their coaches, Oliver Berens at St. Thomas Aquinas and Gradner Michel for the Eagles, are the Miami Herald’s Broward County Girls’ Basketball Coaches of the Year for Classes 7A-5A and Classes 4A-2A, respectively.

In the last five years, Berens has turned the Raiders into a powerhouse. After it lost a heartbreaker in the state championship in 2019 and then lost to eventual-champion Blanche Ely in Region 4-Class 6A semifinals in 2020, St. Thomas Aquinas came back to win three straight championships from 2021-2023. This year, the Raiders rolled through the final four and finished as the No. 4 team in Florida, according to MaxPreps’ rankings.

St. Thomas Aquinas was prepared for it from playing one of the toughest schedules in the state, including games against No. 1 Montverde Academy and Class 7A-champion Orlando Dr. Phillips.

“We want those games to not be our toughest games of the year,” Berens said. “We want that type of experience throughout the entire season and we want to confidently know that, Hey, we’re playing a great team, this is the biggest moment of the year, but also we’ve had tougher games in the season. Maybe not bigger moments, but tougher competition.”

North Broward, meanwhile, is ascending in the same way the Raiders were about half a decade ago.

In Michel’s first year in Coconut Creek, the Eagles won just one game. They followed it up by winning 12 last year, and had another 10-win improvement this year to get to 22 and the Region 4-4A championship game.

North Broward only reached the region playoffs one other time in its history, getting to the Class 3A championship in 2011.

In three years, Michel has transformed the Eagles from an afterthought into a contender, bringing state-title pedigree to North Broward after he won rings with both the boys’ and girls’ programs as an assistant at Grandview Prep. He had four new starters this year — including star senior Riley Weiss, who moved to the area from New York — and it never posed a problem for Michel’s Eagles.

“I just really focused on being a players’ coach,” he said. “I just know how to really push for excellence or push for a goal that my team could achieve.”