Lakeland Bound

Calvin Pryor sat back in a chair on the bench last Saturday night and took in the scene around him.

Minutes before a thunderous dunk by Willie Quinn to complete a breakaway placed an exclamation point on Port St. Joe’s 55-45 victory over Pensacola Christian Academy in the Region 1-2A title game (see game story in Sports).

As the crowd – one of the largest “The Dome” has held for a basketball game in several years – hit the floor and players hugged and high-fived, Pryor sat alone, soaking in the atmosphere, a small tear escaping from his right eye.

“This feels pretty good,” the junior guard said of his team’s punching their ticket to the state Final Four in Lakeland, which over the years has become something of a home-away-from-home for the Tiger Sharks, who will sport a 26-4 record when they take to the floor against Tampa Prep at 11:30 a.m. ET on Thursday in the semifinals.

The Lakeland Civic Center has been the presumed destination for this team since the season started and in that way, Coach Derek Kurnitsky said, this team carted immense pressure on their shoulders the entire season.

“This is all exciting and fun,” said Kurnitsky, guiding his third Port St. Joe team to Lakeland in his six seasons. “This team has had more pressure than any team I’ve coached.

“The first team I took we were not expected to be there and the second (three years ago) had a terrible record and we got hot at the end. I’ve told the kids ‘You have nothing to lose. We are not supposed to win this thing.’”

In both of the previous trips to Lakeland, Arlington Country Day from the Jacksonville area has eliminated the Tiger Sharks. In 2005 it was in the semifinals, two years later Port St. Joe fell in the finals after beating, yep, Tampa Prep.

On the other side of this year’s bracket again looms Country Day and in a sense that is fueling some locker room discussion for the Tiger Sharks.

Kurnitsky said that since Saturday he has received e-mails and text messages from coaches around the Florida Panhandle, coaches who would not root for Port St. Joe under other circumstances, urging Port St. Joe on to a title that has escaped a public school since 2001 when Grand Ridge went all the way.

“We are not just playing for Port St. Joe right now,” Kurnitsky said. “We are playing for every small rural school in North Florida. We are the public school crashing the party. We are the local team with just Port St. Joe kids playing the best teams money can buy, with players from Brazil and places like that.

“We’re the team in the Cat in the Hat socks who nobody wants there. We are there to prove it is okay to coach the kids in your own community.”

That the Tiger Sharks are there at all results from a combustible mix of experience, hard work, experience in the spotlight and just a tad bit of good fortune.

This is a senior laden team that has two players – leading scorer Raheem Clemons and Quinn – who played the last time the Tiger Sharks were in the state finals. Three other players, Roman Quinn in baseball, and Darrell Smith and Pryor in football, are experienced with the playoff pressure and deep postseason runs.

Port St. Joe also is balanced, with Pryor, Roman and Willie Quinn and Clemons each averaging between 11 and 14 points. Since Pryor moved to play primarily at the point, 20 assist games have become a norm for the team, a sign of good ball distribution.

The Tiger Sharks have also enjoyed good luck in the playoffs.

Jefferson County was out-matched in the region quarterfinals but a tactical surprise by Port St. Joe in the region semifinals against Tallahassee Maclay led to a game that in the end either team could have won.

Finally, Pensacola Christian, which had pounded district foe Baker three times during the season, including the region semifinals, inexplicably lost to Baker in the District 1-2A championship game, forcing the Warriors on the road to Port St. Joe for the region title.

“It would have been very difficult for us to beat them in Pensacola,” Kurnitsky said. “Hopefully we are Cinderella and the slipper still fits.”

The Tiger Shark run to the title began last summer during informal workouts among team members. They spent hours in the gym, the weight room, playing games against area teams and applied an edge and determination to their game.

“We knew what we needed to do to get back there (Lakeland),” Clemons said. “We just worked harder than we ever have.”

Kurnitsky also charted a difficult December schedule to prepare the Tiger Sharks for the sprint to the postseason, scheduling a number of schools in higher classifications and going on the road for several difficult tournaments.

“The (Tallahassee) Godbys, Bay High, Rutherford, which is also still playing, Bainbridge (Georgia, also still alive in that state’s playoffs), that is why we are here,” Kurnitsky said. “We played tough teams and it paid off.”

While Kurnitsky had yet to see film of Tampa Prep as of Monday – he was expecting film Tuesday – he said the Tiger Sharks would change little in their style of play, maintaining the up-tempo offense to go with tenacious man-to-man trapping defense, trying to force a full-court game.

“We are just going to play ball,” the coach said. “What has really improved over the last half of the season is we’ve really improved on defense. We really understand about defending. They pay attention to detail and they want to. Defense is a ‘want-to’ sort of thing.”

More importantly, Kurnitsky said, he is emphasizing the journey, taking in the moment and soaking in the hoopla that surrounds this trip to the state semifinals.

“I’ve told the kids to enjoy the moment, from the bus ride to eating together, enjoy the moment,” Kurnitsky said. “Enjoy this week because you never know when you might get this chance again.

“This is a special and unique group of kids. They are so close, they hang out together, they support each other, they genuinely like each other. This is what makes this so fun.”