Doral girls’ basketball team dominates Boca Raton to punch ticket to state

Almost as if they were in lockstep with each other, from their days together at Somerset Silver Palms, Ashley Martinez and Victoria Valle were built for the big moment.

And Thursday night, the moment was about as big as it gets as the two Doral Academy guards and resident sharp-shooters showed off their wares in a big way.

Valle seared the net with five three pointers in the first half and almost as if they were running a track relay together, handed the baton off to Martinez who then buried five threes of her own in the second half.

That formula proved to be lethal to their opponent as the Doral Academy’s girls’ basketball team broke down the doors of history, cruising to an easier-than-expected 72-50 victory over Boca Raton in a Region 4-7A final before a raucous and noisy home crowd at Doral.

Playing in only their second ever regional final and having suffered a painful overtime loss to Oakland Park Northeast back in 2017, the win advanced the Firebirds to the state final four in Lakeland for the first time in program history.

Doral (23-7) will enter as the No. 4 seed and take on No. 1 seed Orlando Colonial in a 7A state semifinal on Friday, March 8 at the RP Funding Center in Lakeland.

“They’ve been competitive throughout their basketball careers and never shy away from the big moment,” said first-year Doral head coach Allison Bustamante of Martinez and Valle. “Real hoopers here that shine in these type of moments and we got to watch that tonight. One had it early and passed it on to the other and it got us a regional championship.”

Valle did all her damage in the first half, scoring 19 of her game-high 22 points before halftime, five of those of course, the three-pointers. Her hot hand practically ended the issue for the Firebirds as they pulled away from a 9-8 lead to go on a remarkable 22-0 run.

Doral scored the final 11 points of the first quarter and then the first 11 of the second quarter to go up 31-8 with three minutes left in the second quarter.

Leading 38-14 at the half, if the Firebirds thought they were going to cruise in the second half, they were wrong. The Bobcats (21-8) finally caught their stride and shots started dropping. Meanwhile Doral started getting careless with turnovers and the shots stopped dropping.

Boca went on a 17-5 run and the Doral lead was just 10 at 41-31 and there was still 2:13 left in the second quarter. It was here that Martinez took over. She hit a pair of threes from the corner in the final two minutes that allowed the Firebirds to go on an important 9-2 run to close out the third quarter up 50-33, an important moment that seemed to stem the Boca Raton momentum and more or less put out the fire.

Martinez then took over the fourth, draining three more 3-pointers, all from the corner as Doral rebuilt its lead back up to 23 and then it was a matter of waiting for the clock to hit triple zeroes and let the celebrating begin.

“I wasn’t hitting in the first half but fortunately Victoria was so for me, it was just a matter of staying with it,” said Martinez. “I knew eventually my turn would come and the shots would start dropping and sure enough they did.”

Martinez, along with Valle and two other teammates, Stephanie Vega and Essence Gibbs, transferred out from Silver Palms after last season when their coach Ben Drummer, left for Southridge.

Of course, Bustamante was enjoying her moment as well, being congratulated by her family and friends, most notably long-time Columbus athletic director Chris McKeon who happens to be her father and coached her when she played at Lourdes back in the late 90s where, to this day she is still the program’s all-time leading scorer with over 2,500 points.

“It’s a special moment for me for sure but when you’re surrounded by an administration that supports you a hundred percent, it makes it that much easier,” said Bustamante who went on to play at Notre Dame following her Lourdes days. “Here at Doral Academy they’ve done nothing but open up their arms to make it an easy transition for me and the girls that came over and hopefully this is the first of many to come.”