Deerfield Beach boys oust Palmetto, face Columbus next with state berth at stake

Many have been waiting for that big Palmetto-Columbus regional final rematch after the Panthers stunned the No. 7 nationally-ranked Explorers in overtime in a Feb. 10 district final.

It’s not going to happen.

Blame the Deerfield Beach boys’ basketball team, which made the long trip down to the southern end of Miami-Dade county on Tuesday night with much different plans, and proved that its 23-4 record was no fluke. The Bucks left the Panthers gym with a 64-55 victory over Palmetto in a Region 4-7A semifinal.

The win puts the Bucks into their first regional final since 2018, but if they thought Tuesday night was a challenge, they haven’t seen anything yet.

Deerfield Beach will now travel back to Dade on Friday to take on a Columbus team that clearly got the wakeup call it needed with the upset loss to Palmetto. That was in clear evidence as the Explorers crushed Doral Academy 68-29 in the opposite semifinal.

Winning their only two state titles in 1997 and 99, the Bucks, who have been off the radar in recent years, will be looking to make only their fourth ever trip to the state final four in Lakeland and first since 2013.

“Friday night? Every night’s a big night for us,” said Deerfield Beach’s Jakwon Morris, who led the way for his team with 19 points after being asked about the daunting task of taking on Columbus. He then held his finger up to his lips as if to shush and quipped, “We’re gonna see, we’re gonna see.”

Morris scored 14 of his 19 in the first half and that was when the Bucks basically won the game.

Trailing 13-9 with just over three minutes left in the first quarter, Deerfield began what would to amount to a 19-1 run over the final three minutes of the first and first five minutes of the second quarter.

They scored the final seven of the first and when Joe Barksdale buried a three pointer as the buzzer sounded to end the first, it put the Bucks up 16-13 and they would lead the rest of the way. They wound up taking a comfortable 34-19 lead to the locker room at halftime.

“We just talked about getting two, three, four, five stops in row, get out to a lead and put some pressure on them,” Deerfield Beach coach Kenny Brown said. “We got after them, made some shots and managed to build a nice lead.”

But the Panthers weren’t about to fold in front of their home crowd as they would spend the entire second half trying to put some mini-runs together to cut down their deficit.

An 8-0 run sliced the Bucks lead to 36-29 midway through the third before Deerfield worked its way back up to lead by 14 at 51-37 with 4:08 left.

Palmetto senior Randy Smith, who led all scorers on the floor with 23 points, then led another charge. His 4-point play when he swished a three pointer and was fouled, converting the free throw, got it down to 54-49 with 2:17 left.

The Panthers’ last gasp came with 48 seconds left when a Matthew Mairena three-pointer, that would’ve cut it to 59-55, went in and out of the cylinder.

The Bucks didn’t make all their free throws down the stretch but they made enough to stave off the Palmetto rally.

The heartbroken Panthers, who finished 25-4, slowly trudged off to their locker room. The best season the program had seen in more than four decades, one that they were hoping would’ve resulted in their first regional final berth since 1980, was over.

“A great win tonight,” Brown said. “We played a terrific first half but came out a little flat in third quarter and allowed them to make a run at us so we’ll have to work on that.”

When asked about facing Columbus on Friday night, Brown let out a wry smile.

“Yeah, I heard somewhere that they’re pretty good,” he said with a laugh. “Obviously we’re going to have a big challenge in front of us but we’re going to show up, play 32 minutes of basketball and see what happens.”