Mustangs' shooting star finishes impressive run

The Lakewood Ranch girls basketball team was not supposed to exit the Class 8A playoff highway this early.

Then again, junior forward India Searls was not supposed to go down with an injury, nor was senior point guard Shauntavia Green. The Mustangs certainly were not supposed to miss five straight free throws in the final two minutes against Gulf Coast on Feb. 14.

If a single one of those had fallen, the shorthanded Lakewood Ranch may still be playing. Instead, the game against the Sharks went to overtime, and with senior star LaDazhia Williams fouling out in the dying seconds of regulation, the Mustangs were unable to overcome the amount of hurdles in their way. They lost, 72-66.

It was death by 1,000 “what if’s,” and Williams will be thinking about them all for a long time.

“It was really hard,” Williams said of watching her team from the bench in overtime. “I just tried to stay positive, but it was hard. We had a real chance to be state champs, and injuries affected us.”

Williams said Reynolds would have added another strong rebounding presence on the inside, and that Green’s ability to run the offense from the point and score would have been nice to have against a Gulf Coast team that has only lost twice this season.

Williams and her teammates never reached the ultimate goal, but Williams, a top-50 player nationwide, said she is proud of what the program accomplished over her four years at the school.

“People always doubted us," she said. "We always fought hard for what we deserved.”

Now, the 6-foot-4 forward has her eyes on the next step in her career, the University of South Carolina. Williams will not be playing any club ball before she heads to college, instead the focus will be on improving her shooting and getting stronger, per instructions from the Gamecock coaching staff.

She does not quite know what she wants her high school legacy to be, saying she “has not really thought about it yet.”

But it could be something Lakewood Ranch coach Tina Hadley has said repeatedly throughout the season: Williams will be remembered as the best player in Manatee County history. She will finish her career as the school’s leading scorer (over 1,900 points) and rebounder (just under 1,000 boards).

Her ability to handle double teams in the paint was something unmatched at the high school level, in my eyes. All of her movements look fluid and natural. There is no wasted motion in her game. If she gets a bit more touch on her jump shot, there is no ceiling on her potential. Selfishly, I’m glad she’s heading to South Carolina, because I’ll get watch her each time she plays against my alma mater (Missouri).

Williams is confident that the program she helped build will continue to perform at an elite level when she is gone.

“They will continue to be successful,” Williams said of the Mustangs. “They have a lot of talented guards coming back, great coaching, and hopefully there will be some incoming players that can have an impact as well.”

That all may be true, but they also lose Williams, and that loss cannot be overstated. Players like her come along once every few decades, and that is if a program is lucky.

So long, LaDazhia, and thanks for all the buckets.