‘Overachieving’ Miami Country Day girls’ basketball reaches eighth state title in 9 years
After a rare year away, Miami Country Day girls’ basketball is back in the state championship.
In 2020, the Spartans fell short of the title game for the first time since 2012. On Wednesday, Miami Country Day made its way back with a 66-44 blowout of Tampa Brooks DeBartolo Collegiate in the Class 3A semifinals in Lakeland.
The Spartans will return to the RP Funding Center on Friday to face Sarasota Cardinal Mooney in the 3A championship. Miami Country Day, which won a record six straight state titles from 2014-2019, can win a seventh this weekend and move into a tie with Laurel Hill for third most in Florida High School Athletic Association History.
“It feels a little bit better this year than in years past, especially the way we went out last year,” coach Ochiel Swaby said. “We had a lot of turnover on the roster, so there wasn’t a lot of expectations for this group that we had, especially at the beginning of the season.”
Last season, youth and inexperience caught up to the Spartans in the 3A semifinals, as they blew a 10-point lead in the final four minutes before eventually losing in overtime to end their record-setting run. The retool became even more complicated in the offseason when star guard Sydney Shaw transferred to Plantation American Heritage, leaving a still-young team without a veteran ballhandler.
On Wednesday, Miami Country Day’s five starters were two freshmen, two sophomores and one senior. Star forward Andrea Daley, who signed a national letter of intent with the George Washington Colonials last year, paced the Spartans (22-3) with 20 points, 11 rebounds, five assists, two steals and two blocks, but the four underclassmen flanking her held up amid a strong start from Brooks DeBartolo Collegiate (17-6) and a tumultuous fourth quarter.
Freshman forward Kayla Nelms, who played sparingly as an eighth grader last year, scored 19 and canned three three-pointers in the second half. Sophomore guard Kristina Godfrey, who took over as the primary ballhandler after Shaw’s transfer, scored 14 points and handed out five assists. Freshman guard Charisse Martin also added 11 points.
First, the Spartans had to weather an early eruption from Brooks DeBartolo. The Phoenix started 3 of 3 from three-point range and jumped out to a 9-5 lead before Miami Country Day closed out the first quarter on a 6-0 run to take the lead for good. By halftime, the Spartans’ lead grew to 27-20 and it swelled to 52-36 with a 25-point third quarter.
Miami Country Day shot 66.7 percent from the field and 54.6 percent from long range, and outscored Brooks DeBartolo, 32-20, in the paint and 27-12 off turnovers.
“We had our size and we used it to our advantage,” Daley said. “That’s kind of what made us go on our run.”
In the fourth quarter, it took nearly four minutes for the Spartans to make a field goal, but the Phoenix barely cut into the 16-point lead. When Nelms hit a three with 4:01 left, Miami Country Day pushed its lead back to 56-41 and finished the game on a 13-3 run to finish off the rout.
Swaby admits he didn’t necessarily expect this team to stack up with some of his title-winning teams from last decade when the season began. When the Spartans lost three of their first five games, he started to think about his long-term vision with his young team until Martin’s mother gave him a wake-up call.
“She said that the girls said that we weren’t running them because basically we have tanked and we have checked out,” Swaby said. “I’m thinking I’m trying to protect this kid’s knee, and be nice and allow her to rehab well, but they were motivated and I think they wanted to do some special things.
“I really enjoy this team and I think in some sense they’re overachieving, but in another sense they’re putting themselves in position to kind of be where they are.”
