For the second time in school history, our boys basketball team went undefeated throughout their regular season with a record of 32-0! To put the cherry on top, our Eagles got invited to Geico's National Tournament at Madison Square Garden in New York to play against the top high school basketball teams that this country has to offer.
"This is what we have been training for all season," said Associate Head Coach Rae Miller. "What we did in the season was phenomenal, but this is where it all really counts."
Winning the national tournament will be the greatest achievement that our Eagles will achieve but what they have accomplished during the regular season will never be forgotten.
The Eagles started their season with an international trip to China where they competed in the Camsing US-China World Tournament. After three games against China's best high school teams, our Eagles won the tournament bringing back the trophy and their cultural experiences they shared with many of the other athletes in China.
Before coming back to Montverde Academy, our boys had to make a quick stop to Honolulu, Hawaii to compete in the Iolani Classic. Going against the ranked No.19 in the nation Jefferson High School for the championship, the game was set to be competitive for our Montverde Academy Eagles. Surely enough, our boys beat Jefferson 71-43 and won their second major tournament overseas.
Their next major tournament was the Beachball Classic in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina where our Eagles were led by the top prospect in the class of 2018, R.J. Barrett. The Eagles completed a flawless run throughout the tournament with a 70-42 victory over Long Island Lutheran (N.Y.) for the final game.
The next stop was at the Cancer Research Classic where our Eagles beat nationally ranked Archbishop Wood 89-45 and also La Lumiere 77-55.
Although our varsity basketball team cruised past most of the competition this season, they faced a tough Chicago team at the Spalding Hoophall Classic and almost faced their first loss of the season. The Eagles took on Simeon and won 62-60 where Duke Committ R.J. Barrett made a steal in the final seconds to win the game.
"They really did a great job defensively. That was the best team we've played, defensively, this year," said Head Coach Kevin Boyle.
They ended the Hoophall Classic with a big 74-48 win over Mater Dei.
Later, the Eagles would finally come home to host a tournament of their own, the Montverde Academy Invitational Tournament (M.A.I.T). Our high profile tournament featured some of the top high-school basketball teams in the country including ranked No.6 in the nation Findlay Prep, ranked No.7 in the the Southeast, Madison Preparatory School, former NBA star Mike Bibby's team Shadow Mountain High School, who is ranked No.5 in the Southwest, and the 2017 State Champions, The Villages Charter School just to name a few.
In the championship game, it came down to the last seconds of play where our Eagles were down by 1 with 5 seconds left against Findlay Prep. In an out-of-bounds play drawn up by Coach Boyle, Mike Devoe received the ball, faked out a Findlay defender and sunk a three at the buzzer and won back our M.A.I.T trophy. It was "the shot heard around the world" as it was viewed over 3 million times on Gatorades' Twitter feed.
To end a spectacular season, our Eagles played at the Metro Classic in New Jersey where they faced a near loss against Roselle Catholic 60 - 59. Barrett was able to score 7 straight points in the last 40 seconds of play to keep our winning streak alive. The next game they played was against Gill St. Bernard's and totally dominated with a 71 - 48 score. The final championship game they played for the regular season was against Christ the King in which our Eagles won 85 - 59.
"This was a great season with even greater competition," said Boyle. "We beat over 10 nationally ranked teams and if we win the national tournament, we would have achieved our biggest goal of the season."
Good luck in New York Eagles!
