Coral Gables boys’ basketball team ends Cinderella season for Braddock in regionals
It took nearly 30 years of grinding away season after season for coach Willie Diaz and the Braddock boys’ basketball program to make the regionals playoffs.
Unfortunately, when it arrived, it lasted less than 90 minutes.
The Coral Gables basketball team wasn’t interested in any Cinderella feel-good stories on Thursday night.
Having gotten knocked off in the district playoffs as a No. 1 seed, the Cavaliers, now seeded No. 5 in the position of wild-card entry, made the trip west to Braddock High School and promptly dispatched the Bulldogs 78-68 in a Region 4-7A quarterfinal contest.
Gables (18-5) will hit the road again next Tuesday and take on top-seeded Miramar at 7 p.m.
The Bulldogs? Even though they packed up their lockers after the game, nothing will take away from a historic season. A season that saw them win their first district title, qualify for the playoffs for the first time and play in front of a packed gym that included many of Diaz’s former players who sat right behind the bench.
When asked about his former players showing up behind the bench, Diaz got choked up with emotion after the game.
“It meant so much,” Diaz said. “Even though we didn’t get the result we wanted, tonight was such a great night for Braddock basketball in so many ways.”
Diaz watched as his team came out red-hot, burning the nets with six three-pointers as Braddock enjoyed a 35-26 lead. But those three-pointers will only keep going in for so long and eventually the Bulldogs cooled off.
Gables, led by sophomore Desmond Romer, who took over the show finishing with a game-high 32 points, seized the opening and proceeded to go on an 18-2 run over the final three minutes of the first half and opening 3:30 of the second to go up 44-37.
“We definitely came out a little sluggish and they [Braddock] definitely had high energy with everybody here in the building, “ Romer said. “But it was just a matter of not panicking and knowing that we could eventually get things back where we needed to and did after halftime.”
Braddock, led by Eduardo Perez’s 24 points including five three-pointers, tried to battle back and came within one point twice late in the third quarter. But Romer, Romelu Delgado (16 points) and Jimel Lane (15 points) proved to be just too athletic underneath for the smaller Bulldogs, and the Cavaliers eventually opened up a double-digit lead down the stretch.
“We all wanted to be here tonight for Coach Diaz,” said Marlon Medina, one of Diaz’s former players from the class of 2004. “We were so happy for him when this team made it to regionals because he’s so deserving of this moment. But the thing about coach was it was about so much more than basketball. It was about teaching us and preparing us for life after basketball and that’s why so many of us were here tonight.”
Said Diaz: “Things definitely went south on us at the beginning of that third quarter. We took some bad shots, and the kids kind of put their heads down. I took a few timeouts, but ultimately they had the athletes and really hurt us underneath with their size. But we’ve put this program on the map now and have 75 percent of this team coming back next season so we’ll be back.”
Summary
CG – Romer 32, Lane 16, Delgado 15, Daniels 8, Fernandez 5, Middleton 2. BRAD – Perez 24, Chavez 17, Torres 9, Santos 7, Guzman 6, Lopez 4, Paz 3. Half: BRAD 37-34. 3-pointers: Perez 5, Chavez 3, Torres 3, Romer 3, Delgado 2, Paz. Rebounds: Fernandez 8. Assists: Lane 8. Steals: Lane 2