Miami Country Day girls’ basketball heads to seventh consecutive state championship game
The annual trip to Lakeland for the state championship game has become routine for Miami Country Day and now the Spartans are heading back to the title game for the seventh straight year.
Miami Country Day never had any issues with Gainesville P.K. Yonge on its way to a 81-50 win in the Class 4A semifinals Wednesday. The Spartans scored 27 points in the first quarter and went into halftime with a 51-24 at the RP Funding Center.
“Today, I felt like if we kind of just played our game, we’d be fine,” coach Ochiel Swaby said at his postgame press conference. “I don’t want the kids to relax too much, but I feel a lot better and more comfortable this year with this group, even though it’s a lot of the same kids as last year, simply because we’ve been just more consistent all year in terms of how we’ve delivered.”
Miami Country Day, which has never lost in seven trips to the state semifinals, will now play for its sixth straight state championship Thursday at 2 p.m. against Tampa Carrollwood Day, which beat Sports Leadership & Management, 64-23, in the second game Wednesday at George W. Jenkins Arena.
Star wing Koi Love, who has already signed with the Vanderbilt Commodores, led the way for the Spartans (25-1) with 23 points and 13 rebounds, shooting 8 of 11 from the field. Star guard Maria Alvarez, who has signed with the South Florida Bulls, added 19 points and four assists, and made five three-pointers. Miami Country Day, which sits atop both MaxPreps’ Xcellent 25 rankings and ESPN’s national power rankings, had three players finish in double figures with eighth-grade guard Karina Gordon chipping in 16.
Aside from 15 turnovers, the Spartans’ offense operated as efficiently as Swaby could hope. Miami Country Day shot 45.8 percent from the floor and 42.3 percent from three-point range, and assisted on 16 of its 27 baskets. The Spartans got to the free-throw line for 19 attempts and made 16 of them. They even had an outside shot to crack the century mark before hitting a 2:30 scoring drought toward the end of the third quarter.
Winning Thursday would just accomplish one smaller goal on the path toward the Spartans’ highest priority. As the top team in the nation, Miami Country Day wants to get to GEICO Nationals once again after winning the tournament in 2015 and 2017. To get an invitation back to New York, the Spartans will need to fend off one more upset bid.
“We don’t take our name lightly. We don’t take being the No. 1 team in the nation lightly,” Love said at the postgame press conference. “We go out and work hard, and no matter what type of game it is we’re going to come out and play.”
This story was originally published February 27, 2019 at 12:06 PM.
