‘They proved me wrong’: Miami High on brink of state title repeat after losing 6 seniors
On the first day of practice, Sam Baumgarten decided he was going to teach Miami High to run a zone.
The Stingarees were the defending Class 7A champions, but seven seniors had graduated off the title-winning team. The personnel, he assumed, wouldn’t let this be a typical, defensive-minded Miami High girls’ basketball team.
Somewhere in the middle of the Stingarees’ eight-loss regular season, the coach said, “they proved me wrong.” Now Miami High is headed back to the state championship after a 46-39 upset of Palm Beach Lakes in the 7A semifinals Friday in Lakeland.
“We didn’t think we were going to be that type of defensive team,” Baumgarten said, “but their attention to detail is ridiculous.”
The Stingarees (15-8) will try to cap off their title defense Saturday when they return to the RP Funding Center to face Tampa Plant in the 7A championship Saturday at 8 p.m. It will be Miami High’s fourth consecutive appearance in the title game and this one might be its most unlikely.
For the past three years, the Stingarees made it all the way to the final game on the back of Colleen Bucknor, who’s now playing for the UCF Knights. They fell short in the championship in 2018 and 2019 before finally winning in 2020, and then it was time to rebuild.
Role players like guard Kiara Cruz and Janay Quinn had to take over as the leaders of the offense. Efficiency, balance and cohesiveness became even more important on a roster without the same level of star power as in years past.
It started on defense, which is almost always the foundation for Miami High and, at first, it was the Stingarees’ biggest issue. They lost five of their first eight games this season against a loaded schedule and gave up an average of 55.4 points in those five losses. They didn’t become a defensive juggernaut until the postseason began. In four region and state playoff games, Miami High is allowing 25.3 points per game.
“On defense,” forward Joelle Wilson said, “it looked pretty bad in the beginning.”
In the final days of the season, the Stingarees are peaking. They gave up only 30 points to Gulf Coast in the Region 4-Class 7A championship, then stifled the Rams, who are ranked in the top 100 in the nation by MaxPreps and led by Zaida Gonzalez, who signed with the FIU Panthers last year.
In the first half, Palm Beach Lakes (12-2) scored just 13 points and shot 26.3 percent from the field. The lead changed hands five times in the first half before Miami High finished the second quarter on a 7-0 run to take a 19-13 lead into the break. The Stingarees never trailed again.
“They’ve just been on point with whatever we’ve done,” Baumgarten said. “Honestly, I wish we had more game film throughout the whole year and we were able to do the stuff we’re doing in the postseason because we would not have lost eight games with the way that these guys prepare. I didn’t know that they were so highly intelligent, especially on the defensive side.”
Wilson, who finished with a game-high 10 rebounds, fueled the 7-0 run with one midrange jumper and two assists, and Quinn carried the offense whenever the Rams started to cut into Miami High’s second-half lead.
When Palm Beach Lakes cut the lead to 24-21 in the third quarter, the point guard answered with a three-pointer. After the Rams cut the lead to 34-31 in the fourth, the Stingarees finished on a 12-8 run with Quinn scoring five of her team-leading 15 points down the stretch.
Quinn, like virtually every other player on the roster, has never known a season without a trip to the title game. It helped her know how perfectly this team would have to play if it was going to repeat even after losing its top three scorers from last season. Now Miami High is only one win away.
“We knew what to do,” the junior said. “We knew what we were losing, we knew what we had coming back, so we came with it, we did what we to do without them, with them, together.”
