St. Cloud Upends Harmony in Boys Basketball, Advances to Orange Belt Conference Final on Friday

By: J. Daniel Pearson for Positively Osceola

Diomar Ortiz drilled a three-pointer from the top of the key with 2.7 seconds left to give St. Cloud a 54-52 upset road win over top-seeded Harmony – sending the Bulldogs to Friday’s 2024 Orange Belt Conference Championship game.

St. Cloud (15-5) will square off against Poinciana (12-4) at 7 p.m. Friday night in the neutral site championship game at Celebration. Seeded second, the Eagles reached the title game with a convincing 58-42 win over Osceola. The championship game will be preceded by a third place game between the Kowboys and Longhorns at 5 p.m.

Ortiz’s shot capped a big comeback for the Bulldogs, who trailed by as many as 14 points in the second half.

Harmony, who led the game from the beginning and for all but the final four total minutes, used a 9-2 run to start the third quarter and build a 40-26 lead. But from there, the Bulldogs began to chip away. Malaki Baker hit a three from the top of the key and Alex Springs and Josiah Cotto scored buckets down the stretch as St. Cloud cut the deficit to five (36-31) after three quarters.

Springs and Baker would key the comeback in the fourth.

Springs would score seven of his game-high 19 in the period and Baker came up with six points and three huge blocks in the period. St. Cloud tied the game at 49-49 on a Springs’ jumper and then took the lead on a Josiah Cotto basket 54 seconds later.

Vlad Torrado hit one of two free throws to pull the Longhorns within one, but they failed to take to the lead when Baker had two big blocked shots on back-to-back possessions. After a St. Cloud miss, Harmony grabbed the lead on a Sylus Cory layup with 30 seconds remaining.

That play set up a wild finish.

Springs missed a short jumper but Cotto wrestled for the rebound on the floor, forcing a tie-up. St. Cloud retained the ball with the possession arrow with nine second left. Sam Perez took the inbound pass, swung it over to Ortiz, who calmly hit nothing but net for the game-winner.

“Our plan was to try to prevent Harmony from getting off to a fast start and they did it both at the beginning of the game and to start the third period,” St. Cloud coach Tommy Billiteri said. “Fortunately we kept our composure and I can’t say enough about how we kept our focus and battled back the entire game. Alex (Springs) and Malaki (Baker) were definitely the key.”

In addition to Springs’ 19 points, Baker – a 6-4 sophomore – scored nine points and had three blocks. “I personally believe Alex is the best player in the county,” Billiteri said. “Malaki just keeps improving every week, he certainly a player we can build around in the future.”

The win gave St. Cloud the season series over Harmony (16-4), as the two split two games earlier this year with the Longhorns winning 54-47 on Dec. 1 and St. Cloud taking a 49-42 win on Jan. 10. More importantly, the Bulldogs two victories in the OBC title insures that St. Cloud will finish with a winning record for the first time in more than two decades and will give them a shot at their first OBC Boys Basketball Championship.

“It will be the first time this year we’ve faced Poinciana,” Billiteri said about Friday’s upcoming game. “I don’t know a ton about them but from what I understand they are a senior-led team and are real athletic. We’ll try to put a scouting report together quickly and get ready to play another really good team.”

Harmony, which fell to 16-4 with the loss, played the game without senior starter Frans Richardson, who was injured in practice on Tuesday. They were led in scoring by Jeremy Penner and Cory with 12 points each; Torrado had 10 and Noah Tribe chipped in nine. For the game, the Longhorns shot 46 percent (19 for 41).

“I thought we played a pretty good game tonight. We stuck to our game plan and took good shots,” Harmony coach Duke Leonardo said. “I do think we missed Richardson a lot tonight. We’re not as deep this year and with him out, I tried to ride our starters for almost all of the fourth quarter. I think that was probably a mistake on my part, it was obvious we were pretty tired and worn out at the end of the game.

‘But we need to get over this in a hurry because there’s no time to feel sorry for ourselves. Although we are not playing for the title, we have a big rematch with Osceola on Friday and that’s a team we most likely will also see again in district play.”

OBC Tournament Results

Monday Quarterfinals