Doral’s Bustamante, Country Day’s Swaby are Dade girls basketball Coaches of the Year
Both Ochiel Swaby and Allison Bustamante are among the best players in Miami-Dade County high school basketball history.
And it didn’t take either long for the success they had as players to translate to their coaching careers.
At Miami Country Day, state championships have been the standard for over a decade under Swaby, who once set the county’s single-season scoring record which still stands today. And this season was no different as the Spartans overcame some bumps in the road to start a new state title streak.
And Bustamante, a former star at Lourdes who played college ball at Notre Dame, capped her first season at Doral Academy by helping the Firebirds advance to the state final four for the first time.
For their accomplishments, Bustamante and Swaby are the Miami Herald Girls Basketball Coaches of the Year for Miami-Dade County.
Swaby earned it for Classes 4A-2A after leading Miami Country Day to back-to-back titles and to its ninth state championship in the past 11 seasons.
The Spartans overcame an 0-3 start and a few other setbacks before course-correcting and going on another dominant run to a title. Miami Country Day now trails only Jacksonville Ribault (12) Fort Lauderdale Dillard (10) for the most state championships in state history. Swaby now trails only the late great former Dillard coach Marcia Pinder (10) for the most state titles by any coach in state history.
Bustamante hopes to begin such a run at Doral and might have the talent to do so.
After coaching at Carrollton in recent years, Bustamante became the Firebirds coach this year and coupled with an influx of talent not only made it to the Class 7A state semifinals, but nearly pulled off a major upset.
Led by its young core of players, Doral nearly beat one of the state’s top-ranked teams, Orlando Colonial, before falling 55-49. But the Firebirds look poised to make an extended run as they will return their top five players - freshman Victoria Valle (Somerset Silver Palms transfer); sophomores Ashley Martinez and Stephanie Vega, both Somerset transfers; and juniors Angelina DeLeon (Palmer Trinity) and Kennedy Yost.
