'Why not us?' Young Oakleaf chases girls basketball history in FHSAA final four

For Oakleaf girls basketball coach Fred Cole, the Knights' first-ever trip to the Florida High School Athletic Association final four comes down to three words.

Why not us?

"It's going to be four teams and we've got just as good a chance as anybody else. I know out of the four teams that are there, they're probably like, 'What? Oakleaf?" he said. "So we're going to go there and just play with no pressure and try to bring it home."

Filled with young talent that has grown into stardom faster than even they expected, the Knights aim for history when they take on Tampa Plant in Friday's FHSAA Class 7A girls basketball semifinal.

Tip-off is set for 12:30 p.m. at the RP Funding Center in Lakeland.

"Even now, when it's three or four days later [after clinching the region], it's still surreal," Cole said during a Monday practice.

When Taliah Scott returned to Clay County after a sensational freshman season at Bolles, joining rising sophomores Fantasia James and Kaylah Turner, everyone expected Oakleaf basketball to be good.

But this good?

"To be honest, I really did not at all [expect to reach the final four]," Scott said. "I thought we'd make it far into the playoffs, but I didn't think we'd be going to Lakeland. But when we started practicing, after we won the first two games, it was like, 'Hey, we really have a chance to go really far. We could win this thing.'

"So now, I feel like we could win it all."

That's the kind of thing that can happen with a trio of sophomore stars who are already grabbing significant attention in the Class of 2023 — all with their own games.

"Fantasia, she can score so many ways, from the 3, from the high post, from the low post," Cole said. "She can drive.

"Kaylah is just that defensive pit bull and she's going to get a lot of her points just being able to harass the point guard at half-court and get steals.

"Taliah is just everything. She can bring the ball up, she's got that deep three and honestly, for this team, it really helps that she has that type of range."

Combine those three sophomores with senior starters Drew Vergara and Geniyah Durante, who nailed a trio of crucial second-half 3-pointers to help Oakleaf put away Timber Creek in the regional final, and the result is something special.

"As the season's gone on, we've kind of started to have that chemistry that we need to be able to get to where we are," Scott said.

Adding a talent like Scott could have risked disrupting the rhythm for the Knights, who already showed signs of rapid improvement during the freshman campaigns of James and Turner. The pair had averaged 10.5 and 17.1 points respectively in 2019-20, when Oakleaf went 16-11.

Scott said the atmosphere at Oakleaf's program was exactly what she needed.

"I feel like here, I have more people who share what I'm trying to do and how I'm trying to play," she said. "I feel like I complement them and they complement me."

Her new, and old, teammates helped make the adjustment smoother.

"We'd played together in middle school and in AAU ball, so when she came back, it wasn't that hard to play with her. She's a really selfless person, and when she played with us, it really was a seamless fit," James said.

"It was kind of just like jumping back into how things were before, and people were really accepting to change roles and everything," Scott said. "I just felt like as soon as I got here, it was like an automatic fit for me."

So far, they're all putting up quality numbers.

Scott is scoring 23.3 points per game, hitting 86 percent of free throws and 37 percent of 3-pointers. James has dramatically boosted her scoring, reaching 15.7 points and eight rebounds. And Turner, in her modified role as a lock-down guard on defense, averages 15.2 points and 4.4 steals.

Opponents often focus on four-star national prospect Scott, who's already racked up two 36-point games in the postseason. She's been swarmed with double-teams — a tactic that doesn't necessarily work.

"You can double-team her if you want," Cole said, "but we've still got other people that can score."

Oakleaf's other adjustment: adapting to the style of their first-year coach, who had previously led county rival Orange Park. Cole took over Oakleaf in the summer after the retirement of former girls coach and athletic director Frank Jenkins.

The usual jitters didn't last long. 

"With anything new, you've got to build trust, you've got to open up," Turner said. "When we started our first couple of games, he's a very good coach and he knew what he was talking about. So we adjusted, we fixed it, and we're winning all these games."

Oakleaf opened the year 15-0, and the only teams to overcome them — Hawthorne and Bishop Kenny — are themselves qualifiers for Lakeland.

For Cole, part of the mission is to avoid overcomplicating the approach.

"They can all go off for 20 [points] a night," Cole said. "Sometimes a coach can get in his own way and try to call too much stuff. I try to let them be them, let them open up and do their thing."

For all their talent, though, the Knights have needed to show some clutch late-game pressure to get here.

Oakleaf nearly got knocked out in the district semifinal by Mandarin, but a last-minute basket from James carried the Knights to victory. 

"It was tough. We all weren't shooting the ball well," she said. "But over the course [of the finish], we made really good plays to put ourselves in the position to get it tied or to go to overtime, and then Coach trusted me to take that last shot."

Sometimes, it's been a dramatic basket like that one. Sometimes, the Knights have put away opponents with accuracy from the line. Sometimes, it's just been their athletic talent and shooting skill.

Now that championship season is here... why not them?

"My main thing is I want them to be happy and enjoy the moment," Cole said, "but don't be satisfied that we're there."

Class 7A state semifinal

12:30 p.m. Friday, RP Funding Center, Lakeland

Oakleaf (24-2) vs. Tampa Plant (24-3): Two more teams still in search of their first state championship. The Panthers were the state runners-up in 2020, while Oakleaf had never even reached a regional final. Objective No. 1 for Oakleaf's defense is containing 6-2 forward Kendal Cheesman (17.5 points, 9.2 rebounds), a Vanderbilt commit who promises to be a challenging matchup for Oakleaf's Fantasia James in the paint. Objective No. 2 is tracking elusive point guard Nyla Jean, who averages 16.3 points and is tenacious on defense (3.6 steals per game). No easy feat, especially for a young squad like Oakleaf. But the super sophomore trio of James, Taliah Scott and Kaylah Turner can work wonders when they get going, and few teams in the state can score at a speedier pace. They're bidding to join Keystone Heights as the second Clay County school to reach a state final. Victory sets up a state championship game at 8 p.m. Saturday against Miami Senior or Palm Beach Lakes.