Rays Fall in PCAC Final

In the wake of the Marco Island Academy (MIA) girls basketball team’s 60-21 loss to Donahue Catholic in the Paradise Coast Athletic Conference final, the team’s two young coaches weren’t bemoaning the team’s 39-point loss. Instead, they were busy counting the blessings of coaching seven hard-working players, planning for the future, and looking for more buy-in from outside the program.

The Rays (5-9) started 1-5 and finished 4-4 if you don’t count a forfeit loss to Moore Haven in the second half of the season. That’s quite a turnaround in just two months.

Head coach Luke Evangelista insists that assistant coach Tyler Gresham’s voice is equal to his when it comes to guiding the young team, consisting of just six underclassmen and two seniors, Bianca Fernandes and Jenna Snover. One of those players, team leader Riley High, suffered a season-ending knee injury just prior to Winter Break. Fortunately, she’s expected to make a complete recovery.

“Tyler's a big voice in this,” Evangelista said. "I'm the head coach, but we're half and half. Because this man has been a huge factor this whole season, having him around, having the connections that he has on the island. He’s a good person.”

The two MIA football coaches agreed to coach the MIA girls in the eleventh hour, but they arrived all-in. They plan to build the Rays into a team to be reckoned with in future seasons.

“They battled, that's for sure,” Evangelista said of the team. “We pushed them, and they responded well throughout the entire season. We were obviously down on bodies and depth. That's kind of been an issue this season and honestly, it’s a program issue. We're trying to correct that. It's a great, tight-knit group of girls. It was fun to be around them. We didn't know what we were getting ourselves into, going from football to girls' basketball, but it was a blast. Everything was always smiles and laughter. They competed hard every day and we’re sad to have them leave.”

Gresham, who was a standout multi-sport athlete at MIA, echoes Evangelista’s sentiments.

"I'm just really excited to be a part of it,” Gresham said. "Marco Island Academy has been eager to get some culture brought back into a lot of the sports. I'm not afraid to say that. I attended the Academy, I know how this goes. And it needs to be said. It’s definitely weird going from trying to change their faces from ‘Hey, let's have fun' to 'No, let's go be winners.' I think throughout the season they kind of got that understanding. Those seniors helped us a lot. I’m super sad to see them go, but really happy to be able to have the opportunity to get them to change the culture. It has to start somewhere. From growing up on the island, I never thought I'd be a girls' varsity coach. Luke and I had an absolute blast. We’re super pumped to see where this is going to go the next couple of years. We have a lot of ideas that we're going to implement throughout the summer. Essentially, we expect big things. These girls are going to be really, really good the next couple of years. We've got a very young team. We're going to try to do some summer ball stuff and hopefully keep those two seniors around to help us a little bit running some drills. That's something that we missed out on to start this season. We had no off-season with them because we didn't know that we were going to be coaching these girls. So that first month was basically getting to know them and them getting to know us. And obviously we had to form that trust.”

"This has all happened within the past two months,” Evangelista said of the team’s turnaround. "This is just two months in the gym. The difference is very noticeable."

The coaches believe it is essential to have a relationship with Marco Island Charter Middle School.

“We went to the middle school about two weeks ago,” Evangelista said. “Derek Tenney invited us over. We didn't have gym time at the Academy, so we had a scrimmage against his best five girls. It's something that has lacked in the past. There's been no reach out to the middle school. We're competing against Lely, Neumann, and FBA. You have two young coaches here who actually want to make something out of this program, who don't just want to show up, check a box, get a win or two, and then get out of here. That's not why we're here. Losing stinks. It's not fun."

"It's funny,” Gresham adds. “In our little meeting after the game the girls asked, ‘Hey, what's wrong with you Coach?' And I said, 'I don't like losing. I'm not a loser. It doesn't matter if we're playing basketball or if I'm playing dominoes. I don't like losing. It's called being competitive.' It's funny, throughout the season you saw our girls get a little chippy and a little angrier, and it was because they understood that we have an opportunity to do something here. Our girls are finally understanding that. And we're pumped. We're excited.”

"I think they're seeing that we're not just going to get pushed over,” Evangelista said. "It's going to be different."

"We always say that it's like we have seven kids,” Gresham said. "All day long, all we can think about is, 'okay, how can we make these girls better?' It's great. These girls are bought in. Obviously, we're bought in. Just expect big things next season, for sure."