St. Thomas Aquinas takes advantage of turnovers to get back to Class 6A state title game
The St. Thomas Aquinas girls’ basketball team made its way to the court at Lakeland’s RP Funding Center wearing white warm-up shirts with three words on the front.
“Defend the ‘Ship.”
Defend was the key word in that statement Thursday as Aquinas held off Ponte Vedra Nease for a 63-45 state semifinal win to return to the Class 6A state title game.
The key stat to know: The Raiders recorded 28 steals and forced Nease to commit 39 turnovers overall that resulted in 38 of St. Thomas Aquinas’ points.
The high volume of turnovers forced led to extra possessions for the Raiders, which were needed considering St. Thomas Aquinas made only 37.9 percent of its shots on Thursday.
“We definitely wanted to play an up-tempo style of game and force a lot of turnovers and deflections,” Raiders coach Oliver Berens said. “We were able to do that. ... What we need to do a better job of is capitalizing off our turnovers and finishing in transition. We missed a lot of opportunities on the offensive end.”
Even at that, junior Karina Gordon led all scorers with 19 points and was one of three Raiders with five steals. Senior Jada Green added 14 points, nine rebounds and five steals of her own.
The Raiders (26-4) never trailed, although they only led 15-13 after the first quarter. St. Thomas Aquinas took over the game in the second quarter after Nease senior Sydney Gomes, their primary ball handler (5 assists per game) and scorer (20.3 points per game) suffered a leg injury. The Raiders forced 12 turnovers over the final 7:33 of the half after Gomes’ exit and limited Nease to just 13 field goal attempts in the first half to take a 30-20 lead into the break. The lead remained double digits the rest of the way.
“We’re athletic and we’re a good defensive team,” Gordon said. “We switch. We can play any defense.”
And they’re playing for a second consecutive state championship after finally breaking through for the school’s first title in the sport last year.
St. Thomas Aquinas still has three of its top four scorers from that 2021 state championship team — Gordon and Green among them.
“This was our goal since last year,” Green said. “We’re not planning on losing.”
This story was originally published February 24, 2022 at 8:30 PM.
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