Injured Mustang gets moment of glory in Sarasota-Manatee All-Star Game

At the 2017 Sarasota-Manatee Boys and Girls All-Star basketball games on March 25 at Sarasota High, the biggest moment was not a massive dunk, though there were plenty of those.

It was not the verbal sparring that was a constant between players who know each other so well.

The biggest moment occurred on the Manatee County boys team’s first possession of the second half. Lakewood Ranch’s Devin Twenty dribbled the ball down the court and over toward his team’s bench, then passed the ball out of bounds to Lakewood Ranch teammate Sam Hester.

Hester was on the roster, but couldn't play because of the ankle injury he suffered in the Mustangs’ Final Four loss to Sickles in the state tournament. He caught the pass from Twenty, and still seated, heaved it at the basket. Swish! They even counted the points.

The crowd erupted, as did players on both teams. 

The people involved were happy to talk about it. 

“At halftime, I asked Devin (Twenty) to give me one, just so I could shoot, because I was kind of bored, and then he did,” Hester said. “The coach (Bradenton Christian’s Scott Townsend) saw, and he was like, "Actually, we should do that in the game, I'm sure they will let it happen.'”

Twenty was happy to oblige the coach’s request. The two Mustangs are best friends, according to a tweet from Lakewood Ranch coach Jeremy Schiller after the game. 

“I was like, 'First play, I'm coming to you, Sam, so you better make it,'” Twenty said. "At first we were trying to see what we were going to do with it, and then first play, I came down and threw it to Sam. Sam just wet the ball (swished the shot). It was a pretty cool moment actually.”

The referees stopped the game for a few seconds, letting Hester stand up and wave to the crowd as the fans in attendance gave him a nice ovation. After the game, Hester said he was looking forward to actually playing, he said, but a few days before the game he received MRI results on his injured ankle, and they were not what he had hoped. His cast has to stay on for a few more weeks, and that meant Lakewood Ranch’s all-time leading scorer was glued to the bench for the All-Star game.

Getting a chance to shoot was “as good as it could have been for me,” Hester said.

Surrounding that signature moment were two games that lived up to their All-Star statuses. The two games featured nine area players: Lakewood Ranch’s Aleah Robinson and Braden River’s Bailee Steury in the girls game; and Lakewood Ranch’s Twenty, Hester, Justin Muscara and Blauvelt Georges, Braden River’s Deoni Cason and Curtis Cobb and The Out-of-Door Academy’s Nate Patrick (playing for Sarasota County) in the boys game. Combine those players with the rest of the two rosters, and it created a massive talent pool.

The girls game was full of tight defense and a lot of defense — as players did not want to take too many shots themselves, opting to pass to teammates instead. It made for an intense game throughout, with Manatee County eventually pulling away and winning 77-67.

The boys game was the antithesis of tight defense, at least for the first 35 minutes. Players were throwing up open shots at every opportunity. It allowed for the team’s pure scoring talent to be on display. Manatee County had the lead for most of the game, but a late Sarasota County run, capped by a breakaway dunk by Booker’s Eunique Arnold with under 10 seconds left, made the score 120-118 and sealed Manatee County’s fate.

The players did not seem to care much. The day was a celebration of the two counties' basketball talent, and though the sports' scoring system leads to binary results, no one who walked off the Sarasota High court felt like a loser, especially Twenty and Hester. The game was likely the last one the pair, and teammates Muscara and Georges, will play together.

Twenty, especially, had a gigantic smile on his face all afternoon. 

"Games like this, you always have fun," Twenty said. "Everybody is messing around. You are trying to win, but you are also not really trying to win. You are having fun with all your boys and meeting everybody that is in your little county. When the end comes around, like around five minutes, teams start to play and actually try to get the win. When we realized we needed to play, we came up short. It's all fun, though."

The events also helped the games' participants in a different way. Ticket sales from the game benefitted the Kyle Jutras Scholarship Foundation, which annually assists and awards scholarships to graduating seniors from both counties, as well as Charlotte County. 

Rob Jutras, the father of the foundation's namesake, said he was unsure if there would be a third iteration of the All-Star games, but when money is raised, and the games are competitive, it's likely they will be back.