Dwyer spent the first half of the Class 7A title game trying to play catch-up against Orlando Dr. Phillips, and it wasn’t having much success. Dwyer went into halftime trailing 28-18.
Dwyer needed a spark and got it in the second half, but the spark fizzled out before the team could capture the lead.
Dwyer, seeking the program’s fourth state title, got some momentum in the second half but ultimately fell short, falling to Dr. Phillips 54-46 at the RP Funding Center in Lakeland on Saturday night. Dwyer’s defeat is the first title-game loss in program history.
After falling behind by 10 points in the first half, Dwyer outscored Dr. Phillips 17-13 in the third quarter. Dwyer went on a 5-0 run to start the fourth quarter and narrowed the deficit to only one point. But Dr. Phillips responded with an 8-2 run of its own, extending its lead back to seven points. Dwyer would not come any closer in the game’s final minutes.
Shooting woes doomed Dwyer on Saturday. Dwyer shot just 25 percent from the field and 22 percent from behind the arc. While Dr. Phillips wasn’t any better from 3-point range, it did hit 40 percent of its field goals.
“Their size caused us some problems,” Dwyer coach Fred Ross said. “There’s some things we just couldn’t execute because of their length.”
Dwyer struggled to stop Dr. Phillips junior guard Denzel Aberdeen, who led all scorers with 27 points. Dwyer sophomore guard Kyle McNeal led his team with 14 points, while senior wing Rodrick Johnson Jr. added 12 points.
Dwyer was missing standout junior Xavier Scott Jr., which Ross said likely contributed to his team’s struggles. But Scott will return next year along with McNeal and other potentially key players like Juwan Dawes and Blake Wilson.
“We feel good about what we have coming back,” Ross said. “We just told the kids it’s not automatic that we’ll get back here, so we’ve got to commit to putting a lot of work in and remember this feeling that we have.”
