High School

Miami Riviera Prep boys win back-to-back 3A state championships

Riviera topples Windermere Prep for 2nd straight year in final

Bill Kemp

Miami Riviera Prep boys win back-to-back 3A state championships
Miami Riviera Prep boys win back-to-back 3A state championships /

LAKELAND, FLORIDA – Ditto.

Miami Riviera Prep won the Class 3A boys basketball state championship for the second consecutive season, holding off Windermere Prep 68-57 on Friday at the RP Funding Center.

Last year, RIviera Prep also defeated Windermere Prep for the state championship.

Riviera Prep players and coaches gather around the Class 3A state championship trophy after beating Windermere Prep for the second straight season in the state final.
Riviera Prep players and coaches gather around the Class 3A state championship trophy after beating Windermere Prep for the second straight season in the state final / Bill Kemp

“The game plan was pretty similar to last year: Let our defense dominate and let them create turnovers,” Riviera Prep head coach Anthony Shahbaz said. “We were able to get them in foul trouble which took away a little of their aggressiveness and their ability to guard us the way they probably wanted to.”

After the first quarter ended in a 17-17 stalemate, Riviera began to pull away in the second quarter, going on a 15-7 run. Riviera also outscored Windermere 18-10 in the third quarter, which was enough to hold off Windermere’s push for a fourth quarter comeback.

“We played the third-hardest schedule in the entire country,” Shahbaz said. “We just knew when the playoff time comes, we are not going to see teams of that caliber. No disrespect to the team we just played, but when you play eight of the Top 25 teams in the country, it is not the same level.”

Riviera (25-8) was led by Dante Allen with 26 points and six rebounds while Gustavo Guimaraes Alves scored 12 and Mason Fuentes had 14 to round out the Riviera attack.

Riviera Prep players celebrate after winning the Class 3A state championship trophy by beating Windermere Prep for the second straight season in the state final.
Riviera Prep players celebrate after winning the Class 3A state championship trophy by beating Windermere Prep for the second straight season in the state final / Bill Kemp

“From the time that buzzer hit last year, we knew what our goal was,” Allen said. “We knew what we wanted to accomplish, There were a lot of late nights and early mornings.”

Windermere Prep (24-8) was led by Brandon Bass Jr. with 18 points while Sinan Huan scored 14 and Samuel Shoptaw finished with 13.

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Bill Kemp

BILL KEMP

Bill Kemp is an award-winning sports journalist at the state and national levels. Over the course of 25 years, he’s covered more than 4,000 sporting events including the NFL regular season, playoffs and Super Bowls, Major League Baseball regular season and spring training, NASCAR racing at Daytona and Talladega International Speedways and major college football regular seasons and bowl games. He was named by the Associated Press Sports Editors as a Top 10 sports columnist and Top 3 by the Alabama Press Association for best sports column and sports page design. He has served as preps editor at the Lakeland Ledger as well as sports editor at five different newspapers in Florida and Alabama. He has been published in dozens of newspapers including USA Today, the Miami Herald, the Orlando Sentinel, the Jacksonville Times Union and the Tampa Bay Times. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of South Florida. He has been writing for SBLive Sports since 2022.

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