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FGC celebrates after defeating Palm Beach State for the Region 8 title on Saturday. (COURTESY OF FGC)
A furious rally saved Florida Gateway College’s season and delivered another conference championship.
The Timberwolves fought back from a 13-point deficit, finishing the game on a 21-5 run over the final five minutes to top Palm Beach State 72-69 for the Region 8 title on Saturday at the Howard Center. It’s the second straight Region 8 championship for FGC, which has now won the conference in four of the five seasons since the program returned in the 2018-19 season.
The win sends the Timberwolves (14-11) to next Saturday’s NJCAA DII South Atlantic District B championship, which will also be held at the Howard Center.
“It was exhausting. Exhausting, but it was nice,” FGC head coach Charles Ruise said. “We had a house full and a lot of them were our returning players coming back to be there and support the guys. It was great. And I got the ice bath. Those jokers got me.”
A pair of free throws from Torrin Andrews gave the Panthers (15-11) a 64-51 lead with 5:22 to go before Maurice Campbell and Antewan Webber came to the rescue for FGC, combining for 18 of the team’s final 21 points. Campbell led the T-wolves with 22 points, seven rebounds and five steals, while Webber just missed a triple-double with 20 points, nine rebounds and nine assists to go with a pair of steals.
“They were big,” Ruise said. “They provided some pressure on the guards of Palm Beach and just did a tremendous job just getting steals and turning them into baskets for us. They were great.”
No one else scored more than Amayoaah Phillips’ seven points for FGC, which shot 49.1% from the field and hit 5 of 15 3s to offset an 11-of-20 day from the foul line.
“That made the difference,” Ruise said.
A layup by Webber started the comeback, and after Nadav Naim hit a foul shot for Palm Beach State, Campbell hit one of his three 3-pointers to get the deficit to single digits at 65-56. Webber then made another layup before Jeremiah Barze got to the foul line for two free throws to pull FGC within five.
Campbell’s layup followed by a free throw 20 seconds later made it 65-63 with 3:09 to go. Webber then hit a layup and got fouled, hitting the foul shot to put the T-wolves up 66-65 at the 2:03 mark.
Eduardo Diaz finally stopped the bleeding with a pair of free throws to put the Panthers back up by a point, but Campbell responded with a layup to give FGC the lead right back. Webber hit two free throws with 45 seconds left and then another with 21 seconds to go to put the T-wolves up 71-67.
“We just extended the pressure a little bit and got some deflections, which led to some steals and some converting in transition,” Ruise said.
Koby Isaac, who led Palm Beach State with 24 points, hit a layup with nine seconds left. Riley Kilgore then went 1 of 2 free throws with seven seconds to go and FGC held off the Panthers to pull off the dramatic comeback.
Palm Beach State’s poor shooting was at its worst down the stretch and finished the game hitting 37.7% from the field and 1 of 16 from 3. Torrin finished with 17 points for the Panthers and Ryan Moore hit double figures with 10 off the bench.
“They came out and they pressured the ball and also shot it well at times,” Ruise said. “They did different things attacking the basket…but for some reason the momentum changed and it gave us an opportunity to get some transition buckets. It was just a back and forth game. After awhile we just had to get the right stops and convert them into some baskets for us. And it paid some big dividends for us.”