Miami High girls outlast Southridge to secure third consecutive GMAC basketball title

They took their lumps early in the season, plenty of them as a matter of fact.

But those losses, many of them playing a tough national schedule, are in the rear view mirror for the Miami High girls basketball team.

Long time Stingarees coach Sam Baumgarten Jr. knows by now that January and February are a lot more important than November and December and if Saturday night’s effort against a vastly improved Southridge program is any indication, he’s got his players right where he wants them.

Led by junior point guard Sydney Wilson, the Stingarees took a 10-point lead into the fourth quarter and hung on for a 43-40 victory in the girls’ GMAC championship game at the Miami-Dade College Kendall gym.

After losing nine of their first 16 games, the win was the ninth in a row for Miami High (including a 61-52 win over Doral last week avenging a loss to the Firebirds in the Junior Orange Bowl Tournament) as the Stingarees improved to 16-9. It also marked the third consecutive GMAC championship for the Stings and sixth in the last seven years, interrupted only by a Norland title in 2021.

Wilson led all Miami High scorers with 15 points while also pitching in four assists, two steals and a pair of rebounds.

“Early in the season, we played some really tough teams to see where we needed to be at the end of the season,” Wilson said. “That’s how we progress throughout the season in order to get where we’re at now. We took our lumps early on against tough competition and we’re benefitting from that now.”

Miami High led 18-9 midway through the second quarter but then got sloppy with turnovers. Led by Dianka Hardisson, who led all scorers with 17 points, the Spartans scored 11 straight points and the teams went to the locker room at halftime tied at 20.

When Hardisson scored the first two points of the second half to put her team up by two, Miami High went on a 14-2 run to open up a 34-24 lead late in the third quarter and never led by less than six points the rest of the way until a Hardisson long-range three pointer as the buzzer sounded only made the final score look a little closer.

“I think we controlled the game for most of the way,” Baumgarten said. “We got sloppy in the second quarter with a lot of unforced errors and turnovers that we’ll have to clean up and lost the lead but they’re a great team so we knew they would push us but we came out and hit some big shots early in the second half thanks to Sydney. and got control of the game again. She’s phenomenal, the best Player in the county as far as point guards go.”

Now the real work for Miami High starts with district playoffs in two weeks followed by regionals for a team that is looking to lock down its seventh consecutive trip to the state final four in Lakeland.

“The road is going to be tougher this year with Doral, Western and Boca Raton but if we don’t play the better teams in the nation, we’re never going to be prepared for those kind of teams,” Baumgarten said. “So that’s what we’re building on and it’s a process. It takes a while to get the girls acclimated to what you’re trying to do but we’re getting there.”

Southridge, now 14-6, was making its first appearance in the GMAC final since the 1990s and is enjoying a renaissance year under first-year coach Ben Drummer who brought six of his players over from last season’s Somerset Silver Palms team.

This story was originally published January 28, 2024 at 1:44 AM.