Telegraph Staff Writer
Lakeland.
It’s where the Bradford High School boys basketball team wanted to be at the end of the season, but the goal went beyond simply getting there and playing in the Final Four at the RP Funding Center. The Tornadoes wanted to bring the Class 1A championship trophy back to Bradford County.
They did just that, defeating Paxton 64-44 in the March 4 final, becoming the first BHS boys basketball team to win a state title.
“It feels amazing,” said Shayne Davis, who led all scorers with 17 points. “I can’t even describe the feeling.”
Dae’Jon Shanks said, “The first in history? This is crazy. You cannot remove that. We’re the first. No one else can do that. It’s crazy. It’s an amazing feeling.”
“It just feels amazing, really,” Jontez Williams said. “We were the first in history to do it. It’s so surreal. We’ve been talking about this since the start of the season.”
Head Coach Sampson Jackson said, “We knew we had the team to do it. We knew we had the talent to do it. We just had to put together a season and get it done.”
The Tornadoes (16-10) certainly got it done in the postseason. Bradford won two regional playoff games and its two Final Four games by an average margin of 19 points. The Tornadoes never trailed in the championship game. In fact, they barely trailed in the entire postseason. Bradford’s only deficit in its 53-35 state semifinal win over Hawthorne was 2-0, while the Tornadoes’ trailed in only one of their regional playoff games, and that was only early in the first quarter against Madison County in the Region 3 championship game. (A three-pointer by Shanks that made the score 7-6 gave Bradford the lead for good.)
When the teams that made the Final Four were reseeded, Bradford was the fourth seed, but they went on to win their two games by a total margin of 38 points, which was the highest total point differential among the seven state-championship teams.
“When we got down here, (our goal) was to assert ourselves, let people know that we were a real team, not a fourth seed who just made it in, that we belonged here,” Jackson said. “We were able to do that. It’s exciting.”
Paxton (24-5) turned the ball over on five of its first seven possessions. The result was an early 8-2 Bradford lead, with Williams and Chalil Cummings each scoring on a drive to the basket, while Torin Brazell had a bucket off Amari Jones’ penetration. Jones also made two free throws during the early run.
The Bobcats committed 11 turnovers in the first quarter and finished the game with 24.
Cummings, who had five steals for the game, said he and his teammates enjoy steals and taking charges more than they do scoring points.
“We work mostly on defense in practice,” Cummings said. “If you don’t have a defense, you don’t have anything.”
Jackson said, “That’s us. It’s more than an identity. It’s a mindset. The game of basketball is entertaining on offense, but it’s really good on defense. All year, and in our postseason, we really hung our hat on defense.”
Paxton’s Latrell Sanders scored off his own steal to make the score 9-6, but that’s as close as the Bobcats would get the rest of the way. Bradford responded with a 10-0 run to close out the first quarter. Davis scored on a drive to the basket, while his backcourt steal led to a layup by Williams, who was fouled on the shot. He made the free throw to make the score 14-6.
Shanks made a three-pointer with approximately 20 seconds on the clock, while Robbie Simmons-Godwin scored off an offensive rebound before time expired to send the Tornadoes into the second quarter leading 19-6.
Bradford eventually built a 31-8 lead. Cummings scored off two offensive rebounds, while he, Davis, Shanks and Williams all had steals in helping the Tornadoes go up by 24. A Davis basket off Williams’ steal made the score 29-7. Davis then grabbed a rebound on the defensive end and made a long pass to Williams for a score in transition.
The Bobcats didn’t get a field goal in the second quarter until 1.59 remained until halftime. That basket was the start of a 10-2 run, which included two jump shots by Sanders and a three-pointer by Kage Wibbing with 37.5 seconds on the clock, making the score 33-18.
Paxton scored the first four points of the third quarter, with Sanders knocking down a jump shot and Kenyon Simmons scoring off his own steal. The Tornadoes’ lead had been trimmed to 33-22.
Jackson said his emphasis to his players during a time out was to smile and go back to having fun.
“We were up double digits most of the game,” he said. “We were upset with ourselves because there were things we were doing that we don’t do. That got into our body language, and we started talking back a little bit to each other in a way that we don’t do. The time out that I burned was just (to tell them), ‘Have fun. We’re in good shape. We’re going to win. I want you to be able to enjoy this championship, so smile and have fun.’”
When asked about Paxton’s run, Williams said, “We didn’t really worry about it too much because we knew we would come back and put (the lead) back up to where it was supposed to be at.”
Shanks said, “We were just like, ‘Play our game. The rest will handle itself.’ We did play our game.”
“We just had to stay focused throughout the game,” Cummings said. “Coaches kept telling us, ‘Stay focused. Run your plays right. If you execute, you’ll win the ball game.’”
Bradford outscored Paxton 10-5 the rest of the quarter, with two baskets coming off offensive rebounds by Brazell and Cummings. Though the Tornadoes struggled at the foul line (9 of 28), Jones had a 2-for-2 trip that helped send his team into the fourth quarter leading 43-27.
Davis scored 10 points in the fourth quarter, including Bradford’s first six points. The Tornadoes closed the game with a 10-2 run, which included two baskets by Williams, who finished with 13 points.
Cummings and Jones finished with 10 and nine points, respectively, while the Tornadoes also got five points from Shanks, four each from Brazell and Hunter Crawford and two from Simmons-Godwin.
Davis and Jones each grabbed seven rebounds, whit Davis also recording five assists. Cummings had five rebounds.
It was the eighth straight win for the Tornadoes, who had gone through a stretch during the regular season where they lost six of nine. It wasn’t surprising to Davis that he and his teammates eventually righted the ship.
“We always knew that we could get to this point,” he said. “We just had to finally click. Like I’ve been saying, we clicked at the right time. We just kept rolling after that.”
In the midst of the postgame celebration, players rushed to the sections of the stands that were filled with Bradford fans.
“It’s so crazy how they just follow us everywhere,” Shanks said, adding, “I appreciate them, for sure.”
Davis said, “It just feels good. We feel such love from the community.”
