Miss Basketball: St. Johns Country Day's Taliah Scott wins Florida girls hoops award
One day before meeting the best in the nation in the McDonald's All-American Game, Taliah Scott captured the top prize in the Sunshine State.
The St. Johns Country Day senior won the Florida Dairy Farmers Miss Basketball award Monday, capping a high school girls basketball career that ranks among the most prolific in Northeast Florida history.
It's the second of the major statewide awards for Scott, who was named Gatorade Player of the Year for Florida on March 8.
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She topped the state scoring chart for the second consecutive year with 36.2 points per game, to go with 9.2 rebounds and 4.7 assists. That performance sparked the Spartans to the Florida High School Athletic Association Class 2A semifinal, the school's first final four appearance for 36 years.
That scoring average ranks fourth in the nation for 2022-23, behind only Senaya Parker of Philadelphia Samuel Fels (43.1), Nicole Melious of Staten Island Susan Wagner (43.0) and Gretchen Dolan of Williamsville (N.Y.) South (39.0). Melious and Dolan are committed to La Salle and Illinois, respectively.
Her 2,735 career points, including the start of her high school career at Bolles and Oakleaf, rank third in Northeast Florida career records for FHSAA-affiliated schools.
Scott becomes the fifth Miss Basketball winner in Northeast Florida history, following Ribault's Dorian Williams (2002), Bartram Trail's Steffi Sorensen (2006), Ribault's Rennia Davis (2017) and Nease's Camille Hobby (2019).
Signed to play college basketball in the SEC at Arkansas, Scott received more than 60 percent of first-place votes for Miss Basketball, followed by Trinity Turner of Dr. Phillips and Emma Risch of Palm Bay.
Oakleaf guard Kaylah Turner came in sixth in the statewide balloting after leading the Knights to the Class 6A final four.
The Miss Basketball award comes one day before Scott lines up for the East at Tuesday's McDonald's All-American Game in Houston, where she will be the fourth participant in Northeast Florida girls hoops history.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Taliah Scott of St. Johns Country Day wins 2023 Miss Basketball
