Hard to believe that it’s been almost a generation since South Lakes won a boys basketball region title. One of the most storied programs in Northern Virginia, the Seahawks have perennially been near the top of the rankings for decades.
But not since 2003 has South Lakes taken the title. Friday night in their home gym, though, a core group of seniors would not be denied in the Region 6D final against red-hot Washington-Liberty.
The Seahawks used their own brand of body-up defense and never trailed, giving their school its first region crown since 2003 with a 56-47 win.
A lot will be said about the high school classes of 2022, given what they have gone through the past two years: lockdowns, virtual learning, mandates and cancelled postseasons. But after this one, the South Lakes seniors’ joy could not be masked.
Senior Nate Owen led the team with 18 points. His three-pointer with 3:15 to play turned back the never-say-die Generals, who had cut a 14-point, fourth-quarter deficit to six.
“Tonight, it was about team basketball, we’re so banged up, but we have a lot of depth and had the horses to get it done,” Owen said. “This is so great – a culmination of everything that’s happened since our freshman year.”
The Seahawks’ previous four region tournament bids ended with losses at various stages of the tournament. Now, the Seahawks take their 23-2 record into a state tournament game Friday at home against Hayfield or Fairfax.
South Lakes coach Mike Desmond said afterward, “We’re a senior-led team and these guys weren’t even born the last time we won the region. But they’ve been through all the experiences and all the heartache [in the postseason] in their four years.
“Usually when your season ends short, it’s the seniors who cry. These guys cried as sophomores and juniors, that’s why this is so important to them. Our season is not over, but it would have felt so empty if we had not won the region.
“I give our kids all of the credit. They’ve heard me yell at them their entire career here – it was the message, not the tone – and they heard it and here we are. They made me look good tonight.
“This turned out to a Nate Owen game. You can scout a team and key on two or three players, but when you are facing a deep team like us, it’s often the guy you don’t key on who comes through. We run about eight or nine deep on our roster, so someone is going to step up.”
Senior Sam Cooley, battling a sore ankle the past two weeks, said, “Our seniors have been together for four years and have all those experiences; we just wanted to win this for our coach.”
Senior point guard Kyle Tang recovered from a rough spill in the game’s opening minutes that knocked out his contact lens – and then struggled when one replacement lens became trapped in his eye socket. It took a bottle of eye drops he borrowed from one the school’s fans sitting in the Hype Squad bleachers to correct the issue.
Tang missed chunks of the first and third quarters with those issues and finished with seven points. However, it was his blanketing perimeter defense – along with that of senior guard E.J. Finney – that helped disrupt W-L’s flow for most of the game. Senior Colin Luongo had seven points; he along with sophomore Aiden Billings (eight points) did a lot of the scrappy interior defense and rebounding for much of the contest.
The Seahawks’ game plan was to focus on controlling the Generals’ bulky and powerful center Eli Hughes, bothering him as much as possible at both ends. Hughes finished with five points.
“We just tried to stay in front of him and box him in every time he touched the ball,” Billings said.
The night before, W-L used a heroic fourth-quarter rally against Madison, ultimately prevailing in overtime. Against South Lakes, buckets were harder to come by.
Generals’ coach Bobby Dobson said, “Our kids were a bit tired after that tough win the night before. Some of the shots that usually go in were not going in tonight. It was more what we didn’t do that hurt us. But South Lakes is a great team and they play the game the right way. We didn’t reach all of our goals [winning a region title], but I’m proud of our guys. You can’t meet those goals unless you ‘get there’ and tonight we got here.”
James McIntyre led the Generals with 15 points.
“We beat the hottest team in the region right now,” Desmond said. “Like every year, [Dobson] gets the toughest kids in his program and they don’t back down. They keep coming at you.”
W-L (18-7) also advances to the state tournament next week.
–Paul Bergeron
@PaulBergeron3