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FGC
LAKE WORTH — Up and down has been a theme for Florida Gateway College this season in conference play.
In Saturday’s NJCAA D-II Region 8 championship, the Timberwolves got down big early. But despite a late push, they never got up.
Florida State College of Jacksonville jumped out to a 15-point lead in the first half and led by double digits most of the way before holding off a late FGC rally for an 80-70 win to take the Region 8 title Saturday afternoon at Palm Beach State College in its first season back in the conference. The Timberwolves managed to cut the deficit to six with 21 seconds left, but it was too little too late in their quest for a 3-peat.
Instead, the top-seeded Blue Wave (24-8) advance to the Gulf South District Championship against Snead State CC, while the season ends for FGC after back-to-back trips to the NJCAA National Tournament. Tarence Guinyard, the Region 8 Player of the Year, made five 3-pointers and finished with 25 points to lead FSCJ, while Jordan Smith added 23 points.
Turnovers were the difference in the game, with the Timberwolves (19-12) finishing with 25 of them while the Blue Wave turned it over just 11 times. FGC had 10 turnovers in the first 10 minutes, which FSCJ took advantage of to build an early 29-14 lead.
FSCJ scored 21 total points off turnovers, which helped offset a 41% clip from the field.
“Lack of focus,” FGC head coach Charles Ruise said of the slow start. “We were trying to do too much outside of what we really need to be doing. Anytime you have that going on you wind up in a position where you’re playing catch-up ball. We were putting them out in transition and they were getting easy buckets, and we were having to work hard for them.
“I felt that they were a little bit more aggressive than we were and they did a lot of good things that caused us some problems defensively.”
The Timberwolves had a steep hill to climb the rest of the day and trailed by double digits until the 4:08 mark of the second half when a basket from Amayoa’ah Phillips cut the deficit to 69-61. Phillips finished with 21 points and Antewan Webber added a double-double of 15 points and 11 rebounds for FGC, which shot 44%, made just 2 of 8 3-pointers and missed 8 of 28 free throws.
Oakley Lewis chipped in with nine points, while Axel Holmquist and Tariq Pitts each scored eight for FGC, which rallied to beat Palm Beach State 85-84 in the semifinals on Friday.
“Their defensive strategy had us playing outside of a threat zone where we’d normally get a good 3-point look, but we weren’t looking at it,” Ruise said. “And then there were times where we maybe had an attempt, but we were looking to drive it. And when it was time to drive it, we were looking to take the attempt. So they had us all off whack on doing what we needed to do to be ready and prepared and get a good look.”
The Blue Wave also made a difference from beyond the arc, hitting 10 of their 23 3s. In addition to Guinyard making 5 of his 9 3-pointers, Smith also knocked down 3 of 5 3s and Calvin Brown made 2 of his 3 that were part of his 10 points off the bench.
Aiden Fletcher added 14 points for FSCJ, which included 8 of 9 makes from the foul line.
“They had good ball movement,” Ruise said. “When you’re working the ball around then you’re going to have somebody that’s not rotating, and they were able to find that person and they did a good job knocking down shots.”
Yet despite the big lead, FGC managed to hang around. After Phillips pulled the Timberwolves within 69-61 with just over four minutes to go, the Blue Wave pushed the lead back to 10 before the Timberwolves began crawling back within single digits.
Phillips had a 1-for-2 trip at the foul line with 2:27 left and Tariq Pitts later hit two free throws to make it 71-64 with 1:54 left. But the following sequence of events all but ended hope for FGC.
Smith missed a floater down on the other end but he grabbed his own rebound only for that possession to eventually end with Fletcher airballing a 3. The ball landed in the hands of FGC forward Joseph Mitchell, who handed the ball off to Webber but Webber’s foot touched the baseline to give possession back to FSCJ.
The Blue Wave still gave the Timberwolves another chance when Ty’jahn Wright forced a turnover, but Phillips then dribbled the ball off his foot trying to drive to the basket with 46.8 seconds to go. Phillips did manage to hit a 3 to pull FGC within 75-69 with 21 seconds left, but FSCJ made 5 of 6 free throws down the stretch to finish off the victory.
“We weren’t able to capitalize on stuff like that,” Ruise said. “Normally we’d be able to get that turned around. We were disrupted by their defense. It really cost us at times when we weren’t able to convert and that was our problem.”
ALL-REGION TEAM
Phillips and Webber were both named to the All-Region team prior to Friday’s semifinals. Webber finished the season averaging a team-high 19.3 points per game on 48% shooting to go with 6.6 rebounds and 3.8 assists, while Phillips averaged 19 points on 51% shooting, 2.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists.
Other members of the team included FSCJ’s Alex McCray (9.1 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.6 assists) and Guinyard (21.8 points, 6.1 rebounds and 3.2 assists); Palm Beach State’s Devontre Chaney (15.3 points, 9.0 rebounds and 5.2 assists), Jaiden Wynn (15.8 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.8 assists) and Erick Perez (6.3 points, 2.2 rebounds and 1.3 assists); and Pasco-Hernando State College’s Xavier Gordon-Somers (12.2 points, 5.9 rebounds and 1.1 assists).
SAYING GOODBYE
Webber and Phillips, along with Jazan Johnson, Nate Mobley, Amon Moore and Adelyas Reaves, are set to graduate as part of FGC’s sophomore class.