A basketball team scoring over 90 points is a common occurrence in an NBA game, but something much rarer in a high school basketball game. However, Monsignor Edward Pace High School’s boys varsity basketball team has been doing just that, including a 96-71 win over the Edison Red Raiders on November 21.
The high-scoring Spartans basketball team is currently 4-0 in regular season play and 6-0 including pre-season games. In the pre-season Tip-Off Classic on Nov. 12-13, the team beat the Christopher Columbus Explorers, 85-83, and demolished the Keys Gate Knights 79-29. They opened their regular season on Nov. 19 with an 82-36 routing of the MAST Academy Makos.
Since becoming the Spartans’ head coach in 2012, Anthony Serro has built the team around this high-octane style of play.
“Our style of play is so unique to what most people do,” said Serro. “We want every possession both offensively and defensively to be less than 12 seconds.” He says that the team aims to shoot around 80 shots per game, with half of those being three-point attempts.
The relentless, fast style has been paying off as the team is coming off of a 20-win season where they averaged 84 points a game, the highest in Florida and 11th highest in the nation. They also won the District 15 championship and were Region 4A finalists, which helped lead to Serro being named the 4A-2A 2014 Coach of the Year by The Miami Herald.
One of the team’s key players has been senior CJ Fisher, who recently signed a Letter of Intent to play for the University of North Florida. Fisher averaged 34 points a game last year and scored an astounding 44 points in the team’s win against Columbus. He is also currently the highest scoring player in all of Florida and 9th overall in the nation.
Fisher is far from being the only high scorer on the team, as junior Sebastien Jean has been another player who consistently scores in the double digits, and juniors Armand del Castillo and Phil Brunson scored 16 and 11 points in the win over Edison.
The Spartans’ remarkable depth come from another unique coaching decision, as Serro prefers to dress and use all 15 of his players every game, while most teams only use 7 to 8 players per game.
Serro says that he hopes for the team to get every bit as far as it did last year and to go even further. The school has also worked at attracting middle school basketball players to the Pace gym by hosting its second annual Catholic Middle School Basketball Tournament on October 24-25 with six schools participating and Cushman School defeating St. Mary Cathedral School in the finals.
The Spartans boys varsity basketball team played their next home game against LaSalle on December 3. The boys junior varsity team, who played their first game against the Edison Red Raiders on November 21 as well, will be joining the varsity team again against LaSalle.