St. Thomas Aquinas lives up to ‘standard’ with third straight girls’ hoops state title

Karina Gordon, Reina Green and Nyla McFadden floated out of their final press conference of the season Saturday, with smiles wrapped across their faces and big sunglasses covering most of Gordon’s, and walked into a reminder of what yet another state championship means to St. Thomas Aquinas.

“This will forever be 124,” athletic director Twan Russell told them. There’s a long legacy of state titles at the school, but each one stands alone at the same time and this one, a 67-43 rout of Punta Gorda Charlotte in the Class 6A championship, was important validation for the girls’ basketball program.

Three years ago, the Raiders had never won a state title. Now they’ve won three in a row, becoming only the fourth team from Broward County to ever pull off a three-peat.

“I’ve been a part of something special,” said Gordon, who was a part of all three championships. “We created history and they’re going to keep winning.”

St. Thomas Aquinas is finally “on the map,” Aquinas coach Oliver Berens said.

“When they come back in five, 10, 20 years, 30 years from now,” the coach said, “they can come back and be extremely proud of what they’ve done.”

The third straight championship was the Raiders’ most emphatic yet.

On Thursday, they beat Lakeland Lake Gibson by 37 in the 6A semifinals for the most lopsided win of the week in Lakeland. In the 6A title game, they used a 15-0 run in the second quarter to go up by double figures and Charlotte never clawed back within striking distance during the second half at the RP Funding Center.

When the run began, St. Thomas Aquinas was down 24-23. When it was over, the Raiders were up 38-24 and they took a 38-26 lead into halftime, stretching it to 17 points later in the third and 26 in the fourth.

It was effectively the perfect execution of St. Thomas Aquinas’ blueprint.

The Raiders (24-8) smothered the Fightin’ Tarpons (22-7) with a mix of defenses, forcing 17 turnovers with three different full-court presses and holding them to 34.1-percent shooting with a stingy 2-3 zone defense. They used their superior athleticism to crash the glass for 18 offensive rebounds, making up for a 3-of-16 performance from three-point range. They played 11 players in the first half alone, unleashing their depth on an overmatched performance.

“I told the girls before the game, We want to make sure that if we have the worst shooting night, if we don’t shoot the ball well, that it won’t matter,” Berens said. “We didn’t shoot the ball well and we still were able to come away with a 67-43 victory.”

St. Thomas Aquinas has built an identity in Berens’ six years at the helm and used it to become a perennial contender.

The program’s growth was particularly evident this year. The Raiders lost eight of their first 20 games this season, lost senior Alancia Ramsey, who averaged nearly 13 points per game last year, to an injury in their first game and lost to rival Blanche Ely in January in a preview of the Region 4-6A championship. None of it ever fazed St. Thomas Aquinas, which finished the season with 12 straight wins, capped by the two blowouts at George Jenkins Arena.

No one at the final four had a greater combined margin of victory than the Raiders.

“To compete at this level was a goal of ours. We knew what the standard was for athletics at St. Thomas Aquinas,” Berens said. “Our goal is to keep on building the program and getting better every single year, and that’s the way that we’re going to keep going on this trend.”

The Raiders will have some tough losses. Gordon, who scored 20 points in the championship, is off to play for the East Carolina Pirates next year. Reina Green, the other player with three rings, is a senior, too.

In almost every sport, St. Thomas Aquinas always manages to contend, though, and these Raiders should be the same. Nyla McFadden — who had 15 points and nine rebounds, and scored eight points during the pivotal 15-0 run — is only a sophomore. Kamryn Corporan, who had 13 points and two steals in the win, is a junior.

At St. Thomas Aquinas, coaches talk about the standard — with the S, T and A typically capitalized to highlight the school’s initials — and it would be a cliche if it wasn’t so true. The Raiders win championships at a frequency unmatched by anyone else.

With three championships in three years, St. Thomas Aquinas is living up to the standard.

“This has been very special,” Green said. “I didn’t expect anything less than this. From the beginning of the season, I knew we were going to win it.”