With 6 players and fast start, Horeb Christian reaches 1st girls’ basketball state final
It has been a season full of firsts for Horeb Christian: first district title, first region championship, first trip to Lakeland for the final four.
Now, the Mustangs can add another one to their list: They’re headed to their first ever state title game after holding off Fort Myers Evangelical Christian for a 66-58, wire-to-wire win Wednesday in the Class 2A semifinals.
“It’s super, super exciting to be here,” said star wing Emely Rodriguez, who moved to Florida from the Dominican Republic last year and promptly led Horeb Christian to its best season ever. “This whole experience is super exciting.”
The Mustangs will be back at the RP Funding Center on Friday to play for their first state title against Orlando Faith Christian. It will be the biggest stage yet for Horeb Christian and the Mustangs (19-4) still haven’t been rattled at any point on this historic run.
It helped to start fast in the 2A semifinals. Horeb Christian, which has now won 10 in a row, started off with a barrage from three-point range and never trailed inside George Jenkins Arena. The Mustangs started out with three straight three-pointers — one each by guards Bijoux Lacombe, Brenjalimar Colon-Soto and Aliana Davila — to go up 9-2 and they led 25-14 at the end of the first quarter despite zero points from Rodriguez.
Dwayne Donnell admitted the Mustangs’ long-range eruption caught his team off guard.
“We knew we had to guard Emely Rodriguez,” the Evangelical Christian coach said. “That was what we talked about.”
Added coach Agustin Pelaez: “All year long, Keysi Aybar and Emely Rodriguez have been seeing double and triple teams consistently. That was in our prep, having our kids be ready for their moments. That’s what it’s all about and they showed up in those moments.”
Lacombe scored 11 points and went 3 of 3 from deep. Davila had 14 and went 3 of 7 on threes. Aybar notched a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds.
Eventually, the threes did stop falling, but Rodriguez was in rhythm by then. Rodriguez, who already holds scholarship offers from the Mississippi State Bulldogs and USF Bulls, finished with 24 points, 19 rebounds, five blocks and four steals, and took over near the end of the second quarter to send Horeb Christian into halftime with a 38-24 lead.
With a little more than two minutes left in the first half and the Mustangs’ lead, Rodriguez rose through four Sentinels for a defensive rebound, turned up the court and went coast-to-coast for a running hook shot to push Horeb Christian’s lead back to 31-22. About 90 seconds later, she got the ball at her own three-point line after a steal, went behind her back to escape trouble and then froze a defender with another behind-the-back dribble at the elbow to finish a leaner for a 35-22 lead.
The Mustangs led by as many as 19 in the third quarter before Evangelical Christian (24-5) chipped away to give Horeb Christian a scare in the fourth.
With a little more than three minutes left, the Sentinels cut Horeb Christian’s lead to 54-49, but the Mustangs ripped off eight straight points to put away Evangelical Christian.
Horeb Christian will now stay away from home for two nights ahead of the title game and practice at Polk State College in Winter Haven on Thursday. If the Mustangs can finish off their first championship this weekend, it will because of what happens at Polk State and what has happened on practice courts all year long.
Horeb Christian only has six players on its current roster and, unsurprisingly, it has made practice a strange endeavor. Sometimes, the Mustangs just play 3-on-3 games. Sometimes, they’re able to find a few other bodies to drag in to get some 4-on-4 action. Every once in a while, they can find enough to get a full 5-on-5 look.
Always, it’s physical, Pelaez said, and Horeb Christian’s success starts there, where Rodriguez pushes Aybar and Aybar pushes back, and an intimate atmosphere makes for fiery competition.
“It’s elbows, it’s shoving ... but they understand the mission,” he said. “It’s just setting them with the mindset of winning. We definitely have built that with our chemistry and it’s in our DNA.”
