Samara Spencer’s first season at St. Thomas Aquinas ended in sadness.
The Raiders were moments away from winning the program’s first state title, but Tampa Bay Tech seized the momentum in the game’s final minute and won in overtime.
“What hurt the most about losing my sophomore year was the seniors that were on that team; it was my only year playing with them, and we got that far and didn’t finish it,” Spencer said. “I definitely feel like that was motivation for the last two years. … I definitely wanted to go out knowing that I helped St. Thomas win a state title.”
Spencer’s last season with St. Thomas ended in joy, with the Raiders coming back and beating Apopka Wekiva to win the Class 6A state title. She is also the South Florida Sun Sentinel Broward County Class 7A-6A player of the year.
“Samara has just been an incredible leader for our program, and a lot of our kids have looked up to her to set an example — not only on the court, but just for guidance — and she’s almost like an older sister to the rest of the kids on our team,” St. Thomas Aquinas coach Oliver Berens said. “She’s just been an incredible talent for us the last three years.
“It’s been remarkable seeing her grow both on and off the court. It was tremendous to get to see her finish holding up the trophy at the RP Funding Center after having endured so much. She’s been everything we could’ve ever asked for as a St. Thomas Aquinas Raider, and she’s going to have a tremendous career at Arkansas.”
Spencer finished her senior year averaging about 16.7 points per game, effectively tied with sophomore standout Karina Gordon for first on the team. Spencer also averaged 5.8 rebounds per game.
In Lakeland, the Raiders’ fortunes lied largely with Spencer, and she delivered. The senior didn’t score for the first 8:56 of the team’s state semifinal game, and St. Thomas fell behind. But she came alive late, finishing the game with 24 points, and the Raiders advanced. In the title game, she got off to another slow start but led the team with 17 points in a narrow win, the decorated school’s first state championship in girls basketball.
“Over the last two years, but especially this year, she’s now turned into the leader of our program,” Berens said. “She’s taken on that responsibility that everybody depends on her and everybody feeds off of her. When something bad happens, she has to maintain composure. And when something good happens, she has to maintain that same composure.”
Spencer’s career will continue at the Division I level next year as she is signed to play at Arkansas.
“I’m definitely looking forward to playing on such a big stage,” Spencer said. “I’ve been watching women’s college basketball basically my whole life, and I’ve had a lot of people that I know or a lot of people that I came across go to college to play basketball and I’ve seen them do a lot of good things. For myself, I hope that’ll be the case, too.”
