Dillard girls pull away from Father Lopez to move within one win of its 10th state title
Dillard’s quest for a 10th girls’ basketball state championship will continue Saturday.
The Panthers moved within one win of their 10th state title Friday by pulling away from Daytona Beach Father Lopez for a 53-38 win in the Class 7A semifinals at the RP Funding Center. The most decorated program in South Florida will be back at George W. Jenkins Arena at 4 p.m. for a meeting with Ponte Vedra Nease in the 7A championship.
Dillard, whose nine Florida High School Athletic Association championships are second only to Jacksonville Ribault’s 12, is looking for its first state title since 2015. The three-year drought since their last championship is Dillard’s longest since going four years between their 2005 and 2010 titles.
“Titles are not so much for me, but for them,” said coach Marcia Pinder, who has been the coach for all nine state titles. “They’ve been with us all through middle school and high school, so this one is kind of special for me, for them, since they’ve been with us the longest.”
For most of the first 16 minutes, Father Lopez could hang. Dillard (25-5) led 12-9 at the end of the first quarter before starting create separation from Father Lopez (27-3) toward the end of the second. Raven White, who has signed a National Letter of Intent with the Southern Jaguars, made it happen.
The star post player first scored in the opening minute and a half, then Father Lopez’s zone kept her from getting clean looks as Dillard settled for seven three-point attempts in the first half, missing all seven.
With 5:26 left in the half, White pulled down an offensive rebound and went right back up for an easy two points, then she went to the bench for a quick breather. She returned after less than a minute and immediately grabbed another offensive rebound, putting it back for an and-one.
“My teammates got me more involved,” White said at a postgame press conference. “They just found me as I was cutting to the basket.”
White finished the half by scoring the Dillard’s last nine points, stretching a 14-12 lead out to 23-17 by halftime. The senior finished with game highs of 19 points and 12 rebounds, and Dillard never led by fewer than seven in the final 13 minutes. Star wing Genovea Johnson, also signed with Southern, added another 15 points and nine rebounds on 5-of-8 shooting in the lopsided win.
For this group, Friday will be a new stage. This senior class has never played for a state championship and only reached the semifinals for the first time last year. In 2016, Dillard was only a runner-up in its district. In 2017, it didn’t even qualify for the region tournament.
Last year, it finally made it back to Lakeland for the first time since winning the 2015 championship and promptly fell to Fort Myers in the 7A semifinals. It was the first time in program history a trip to Polk County didn’t end in a state title.
The memories of 2018 are what drove Dillard back to the final four for a chance at redemption. One more win against Nease (28-1) will bring another title back to Fort Lauderdale.
“We all took it tough and the majority of the team this year knew how it felt to lose in the semifinals,” Johnson said the postgame press conference, “so from October until now, this is what we’ve worked for and we’re going to bring it on.”
This story was originally published March 1, 2019 at 1:20 PM.
