Riviera misses out on first state title after ‘broken play’ leaves Bulldogs 1 point short
This wasn’t the way it was supposed to end for Riviera Prep and this four-year run of unprecedented excellence.
For four years, Riviera Prep has contended for state championships, making the Class 4A semifinals in 2019 and the Region 4-3A championship in 2020 before losing an entire season to COVID-19 in 2021. Now the Bulldogs were finally in the title game for the first time, with a chance to get the Class 3A championship to overtime Friday if they could just get a good look at a three-pointer out of a timeout with 4.5 seconds remaining.
Instead, Riviera didn’t even put up a three. Nicolas Flowers got a last-second layup and put it through the hoop as time expired. Tallahassee Florida State University won 67-66 to deny the Bulldogs their first state title.
“Obviously, a heartbreaking and devastating loss for my boys,” Riviera Prep coach Anthony Shahbaz said. “This one’s way tougher than the first time.”
When the runner-up trophy was handed out, Riviera’s players and coaches didn’t even move from their bench at the RP Funding Center. They were still in shock about how it ended, especially after all they went through to bring the Bulldogs (24-8) to the brink of history.
They fell behind 14-6 in the first quarter and battled back with a 7-2 run to end the period and get it back to 16-13. They went down 21-13 early in the second and again answered with a 7-2 run, and went into halftime tied 28-28 when guard Esteban Lluberes banked in a three from the right corner at the buzzer.
In the fourth quarter, they faced their largest deficit at 51-38 and, right when Florida State University (24-7) was ready to pull away, they turned on the press and used an 11-0 run to cut the Seminoles’ lead down to 53-52 with 5:45 left. The rest of the game was played within six points and mostly within three.
It was as close as Riviera got, though, even as Lluberes poured in 28 points in his final game as a Bulldog.
Shahbaz tried to set up the senior to be the hero. With 4.5 seconds left, the fifth-year coach called a timeout with Riviera down 67-64 and drew up a play for Lluberes, who tried to cut from the baseline up to the three-point line, only to run into a pair of defenders with Florida State University switching to a zone defense. The Bulldogs instead inbounded to Edward Nnamoko on the right wing and he immediately fired up a two-point jumper, leaving it short. Flowers grabbed the offensive rebound and threw up a putback as time expired.
The guard was the only other player to score in double figures for Riviera. Star guards Tre Donaldson and Anthony Robinson combined for 41 for the Seminoles.
“A few of our guys I wouldn’t say panicked, but just tried to get a shot up,” Shahbaz said. “We had a secondary play for one of our shooters, but it never got to that point.
“Obviously, we came up one point short on that broken play.”
In the middle of every one of those comebacks — and every accomplishment from the last four years — was Lluberes and he gave the Bulldogs a belief they could rally, even when Florida State University was on the verge of blowing them away at the start of the fourth.
He was a first-team all-county selection by the Miami Herald in 2019 and 2020, which is why Shahbaz felt Riviera would’ve been the favorite for the 3A title in 2021 if it had gotten a shot to play.
Instead, the school shut down all sports a few weeks before the season was set to begin because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Bulldogs felt like they “100-percent” would’ve won a state title if they had gotten a shot, Shahbaz said.
They kept their belief at the start of the year and it only got stronger when they staged a 27-point comeback in the final three minutes of a preseason game.
They nearly did it again in Lakeland.
When Riviera fell behind by eight in the first quarter, Lluberes scored four points in 52 seconds to cap a 7-3 run. When the Bulldogs went down by eight again in the second, Lluberes hit a pull-up three and two free throws on another 7-2 run.
In the fourth quarter, Lluberes scored nine points, went 4 of 4 at the free-throw line and dished out two assists while the Bulldogs tried to scrape out one last comeback.
When Nnamoko’s final shot went up, he sprinted from close to halfcourt all the way to the baseline to try to get ready for one final miracle. When Flowers’ layup fell through the hoop, Lluberes snatched the ball out of the air and handed it to the Seminoles as quickly as he could, begging them to inbound the ball with time left on the clock.
All he wanted was one more chance.
“He’s just such a fighter, such a soldier. He truly is what Riviera is,” Shahbaz said. “He’s a smaller player; we’re a smaller school. He has a huge heart, he never backs down from anyone. He gave his heart and soul out there.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2022 at 7:29 PM.
