At multiple points this season, it seemed like there was a good chance this Choctaw team would see its Final Four streak snapped. At multiple points in Thursday’s regional final, it seemed like Paxon School for Advanced Studies might be the team to do it.
The Lady Golden Eagles were clearly the best chance to deny Choctaw a fifth straight trip to the Final Four. Head Coach Jim Bay expected a dogfight.
It was. But this is Choctaw. Regional titles are the standard.
“We knew they were going to come in fired up. We play them a lot, we see them often during the summer,” Bay said. “We knew they were a talented team, so we just had to do our job.”
And once again, the Lady Indians are regional champions — though they had to survive a track meet to get there, as Diaris Morales and Paxon quarterback Elyanna Perez went blow for blow.
The Paxon defense stopped Choctaw on its first drive, but on the Lady Golden Eagles’ first play from scrimmage, Trinity Davis came down with an interception, setting up a Morales touchdown pass to KK Hardy.
A few plays later, Choctaw appeared to come up with a stop. But Perez came through with a scramble to keep the drive alive, and Sanyiah Hawkins hauled in the tying touchdown a few plays later.
- Morales responded with another touchdown pass to Hardy. Perez answered with a touchdown pass to Treasure Curry to knot it at 14 heading into the half.
With the Lady Golden Eagles getting the ball first in the second half, they had a chance to seize momentum. It looked like they would, but a botched snap on third down set up a do-or-die play from Perez — and Hardy made the play to break up the pass.
“It was in the air, the girl was right there. Luckily, I just jumped and got it,” Hardy said.
A few plays later, Hardy had her third touchdown of the night.
“KK’s a beast. She’s all that we’ve seen from her and expect from her,” Bay said. “She’s got so much speed and she’s hard to control.”
- “It’s honestly a blessing. I thank God and Dee,” Hardy added, referring to Morales. “The girls are playing up like they should, so I used my speed.”
Then Maddy Farris delivered a pick-six to put Choctaw up two scores — a hole that proved too big for Paxon to climb out of.
The Lady Golden Eagles responded with another touchdown on a pass from Perez to Hawkins, but Choctaw answered as Morales led another drive downfield, capped off by a shovel pass to Tishelle Bowles for the score in a 33-20 final.
“Defense really stepped up,” Bay said. “I didn’t want this to go down to the wire. We didn’t want to have to battle at the end.”
Now, Choctaw will travel to the Final Four, where it will likely face Robinson in a rematch of last year’s state championship. Robinson defeated Northeast 46-0 in its regional final. The winner of that game will face the winner of the Northwestern-Deltona matchup, with all three games being held at the AdventHealth Training Center in Tampa.
