Sanford (19-4) dominated en route to a 51-36 win over Smyrna (21-3) in girls basketball state championship Friday, March 12 at the University of Delaware's Bob Carpenter Center.
The Warriors led 20-6 at the end of the first quarter, 28-12 at halftime and 39-24 after three. Sanford never trailed.
Naiesha Brown stole the show. She was the game's leading scorer with 22 points, including four 3-pointers.
This was Sanford’s first girls basketball title since 1994.
For Sanford girls’ coach Marcus Thompson it was the end of a quest that lasted a quarter-century.
A Sanford alumnus and former player, Thompson helped lead the Warriors to the Final Four in the boys tournament during his senior season in 1985, but they fell 75-65 to eventual state champion Howard in the semi-finals, despite 22 points from Thompson. The following year, the Sanford boys won the first of their five state championships.
Now Thompson has his state title.
“It’s exciting,” Thompson said. “To be a part of this is really something special. Some of the players I played with called. John Kulesza, who was on that team [that won the first title], called and said ‘I bet you wish it happened 25 years ago, but you’ll take it today I’m sure.’”
Thompson said that he returned to Sanford as a coach in order to “give something back” to the School.
“I wanted to keep the tradition going,” Thompson said. “Slowly but surely we’ve had the tradition built by great [former] players like Paris Waterman, Jasmine Gibson and Jamie Milliski.”
