RICHMOND — Early this season, South Lakes Coach Mike Desmond had just one critique for one of the best players in Northern Virginia public school basketball history: He wanted junior guard Jordan Scott to be a little more aggressive.
At VCU’s Siegel Center, a stage that has affected the efficiency of so many before him, Scott finished with a game-high 23 points on 9-for-12 shooting. A broken thumb on his shooting hand, wrapped up under white tape, didn’t hinder a pair of three-pointers and blocks. And an understated persona — Scott almost always plays with a steady stare — finally evaporated in the third quarter, when he cocked his right hand well behind his head, took flight and dunked on a Patriot defender, mean-mugging with a 15-point advantage that effectively sealed the win.
Back in eighth grade, Scott promised Desmond that he would do what Grant Hill never did at South Lakes: bring a state title back to Reston. He did it with a season to go.
“It’s pretty historic,” Scott said while wearing the championship net around his neck. “There’s been a bunch of great players and great teams, and they’ve never done it.”
At game’s end, seniors Aiden Billings and Tyler Andre buried their tears in the top of their jerseys. Senior Brian Kennedy found his way to the middle of the celebration circle. From the stands, Scott’s mom, former Maryland star Christy Winters-Scott — who had an outsize impact on his development — recorded the scene with her phone and sobbed.
As the celebration built, Desmond could no longer repress a grin. It wasn’t all he held back.
“I told them that I don’t love them — I hate them because I don’t want to get choked up,” he said, his voice breaking a little. “I’m sure whenever I have to say goodbye, I might kind of choke up. But not tonight.”
It was an unlikely blowout. South Lakes (26-2) and Patriot (23-5) were title favorites as soon as last year’s championship game buzzer sounded on a Hayfield win, and they spent the winter as Northern Virginia’s top-ranked public school teams. In December, Patriot — a state finalist last year — beat South Lakes by 11. That the teams met again here was a credit to their depth, their mettle and their coaches’ ability to manage personalities.
“That put us over our heads last year,” Kennedy said, referencing the weight of bringing South Lakes its first title, an aspiration cut short in the state semifinals. “This year, we took everything one step at a time.”
South Lakes prevented Patriot from ever finding its rhythm. Kennedy (16 points) hit a three-pointer at the buzzer before halftime to extend the Seahawks’ lead to 10. And as he had in most of their big games, he showed up again with timely layups; Pioneers Coach Sherman Rivers called his play over the past month the biggest reason for South Lakes’ title.
Sol Vita, Kennedy’s backcourt mate, was steady throughout. Billings and fellow senior forward David Rochester bullied Patriot down low. And South Lakes shot 55.8 percent; it held Patriot to 27.8 percent.
