St. Thomas Aquinas girls close on 35-10 run, rally from 11-point deficit in state semis

St. Thomas Aquinas doesn’t usually run its press well. Oliver Berens isn’t even sure his team did Thursday.

The coach knew his strategy from the first half wasn’t going to work, though. Punta Gorda Charlotte was in command deep into the third quarter when the Raiders finally decided they needed to change something to get the Class 6A girls’ basketball semifinals to their tempo. The press was it and Charlotte’s 11-point second half lead withered away into nothing and eventually a 62-48 win for St. Thomas Aquinas in Lakeland.

“We were just able to get stops and create a different tempo,” Berens said. “Our girls stopped thinking and just started playing, and started moving at a fast pace and that’s really what we were trying to create more so than being structurally correct or anything like that.”

The Raiders (16-4) trailed 38-27 with 1:52 left in the third quarter, then used two separate runs in the final 10 minutes to rally past the Fightin’ Tarpons (22-3) and reach the state championship for only the third time in school history.

St. Thomas Aquinas will return to the RP Funding Center on Saturday to face Apopka Wekiva in the 6A championship. The Raiders, who lost in the title game in 2019, are one win away from their first Florida High School Athletic Association championship.

It took a game-ending 35-10 push just to get there. St. Thomas Aquinas, ranked No. 37 in the nation by MaxPreps, closed the third quarter on a 9-1 run to cut Charlotte’s lead to 39-36, then tied the game at 41-41 just 1:03 into the fourth.

It was the second time the Raiders tied the game and both times the Fightin’ Tarpons answered with a three-pointer to retake the lead. This time, St. Thomas Aquinas had an answer, too. An 11-0 gave the Raiders the lead for the first time and for good.

“It took us a lot of energy and a lot of tempo, and just them making plays for us to finally break them,” Berens said. “It took a long time.”

St. Thomas Aquinas scored 16 points off turnovers in the final 10 minutes as the Raiders outscored Charlotte, 24-9, in the fourth quarter.

“It changed the tempo and then we started scoring off of it,” sophomore Karina Gordon said. “The energy just changed.”

It was clear right away the press was changing the game for the Raiders.

A 7-0 run late in the third cut the Fightin’ Tarpons’ lead to 38-34, when junior Maya Williams jumped a passing lane and got a breakaway layup. She missed, but Gordon was there to follow the shot and cap a 9-0 run with a putback.

“We knew at that point,” star senior Samara Spencer said, “that it was on.”

Gordon and Spencer, who signed a national letter of intent with the Arkansas Razorbacks last year, both scored 24 points with 17 each coming in the second half. The two combined to score 25 straight for St. Thomas Aquinas from the time the comeback began until the Raiders led 52-46.

Spencer was the one to finally tie the game at 41-41 on a steal-and-score with 6:57 remaining. For the next three minutes, St. Thomas Aquinas’ press deflated Charlotte. Eight of the Raiders’ 11 points on their game-winning 11-0 run came off turnovers and the Fightin’ Tarpons finished with 14 total.

“I just told our team to push, keep fighting, remember what we’re here to do and accomplish, and leave everything you have all out on the floor and play with a lot of pride and honestly just push the pressure up because every time we were putting pressure on them int he second half we were getting good results and it was creating a good tempo for us offensively.”