Lakeland – If you’re not from Lake County or the City of Leesburg you simply wouldn’t have the slightest idea how much this means to them that their Yellow Jackets are the Class 4A State Champions. In just their 3rd State Title appearance since 1977, the Yellow Jackets made all the right moves on the way to a 66-58 victory over Cardinal Gibbons from Fort Lauderdale.
“I don’t know how I could’ve gave a last speech without being called State Champions this year and they [players] knew that and understood what that meant.” said Head Coach Marcel Thomas. “We saw Gibbons play yesterday, and we knew that if we could get them to speed up what they were doing we would have a shot. They held their opponents to some really low scoring games; our tempo is fast. We had to make them speed up.”
Leesburg was led by Juniors Joe Tooli and D’Mauri Jones with 18 and 17 points a piece respectively. Jones, who also is a highly sought after prospect at safety on the gridiron was instrumental in breaking the Chiefs half-court press as well as extending their vaunted zone defense. Afterwards, Thomas mentioned as much. “D’Mauri did a great job of occupying the middle for us tonight. He was able to get the ball in hands and make the right play.” Jones’ Uncle was a member of the 1977 State Championship Team. “We felt like we had the weight of Leesburg and all of Lake County on our shoulders.” said Thomas.
Leesburg did not do themselves any favors when the playoff began when they lost the District Tournament to rival Lake Weir forcing them to become ‘road warriors’ for the duration of the series. “It was a blessing in disguise that we had to travel for the entire time. We played some of our best games on the road on some of the toughest environments I’ve ever seen.”
The Yellow Jackets had to travel to Kissimmee to play Poinciana, back to Lake Weir, and then to Brooksville against Nature Coast whom Thomas gave credit as being the loudest gym he’d ever been in. Leesburg finishes the season at 28-4 and returns 4 of 5 starters from this year’s team.