No. 1 Montverde Academy holds off No. 4 Prolific Prep to win the MAIT title

MONTVERDE, FLORIDA – A seventh national title escaped Montverde Academy this past year, but if the final minute of the MAIT championship game was any indication, the Eagles are ready to nail it down.

Montverde, the No.1-ranked team in the SBLive/Sports Illustrated Power 25 rankings, scored the final six points to put away No. 4 Prolific Prep Napa Christian, 78-72, and win the MAIT title Saturday after the game was knotted with 53 seconds remaining.

The game saw 11 lead changes and the score tied five times.

“We just stay in condition,” said Montverde senior forward and Duke signee Cooper Flagg. “Every day at practice, coach is pushing us. And it came down to conditioning. We have big players and big players make big plays.”

Flagg, who was named the tournament’s MVP, scored on a decisive slam dunk in the final 20 seconds to put Montverde up 76-72. He finished with 17 points and nine rebounds in a game which rostered six McDonald’s All-American players.

“I thought it went well,” Flagg said. “We just keep getting better every single day, growing as a team and getting stronger, stronger, stronger.”

The six All-Americans include Flagg, Derik Queen and Indiana signee Liam McNeeley for Montverde and Diallo Vazoumana, Aiden Sherrell and Alabama commit Derrion Reid for Prolific. Reid did not play because of an injury.

Montverde (23-0) handled Prolific Prep, 76-71, two weeks ago but found itself tied 35-35 at halftime and 58-58 at the end of the third quarter.

Montverde senior guard Derik Queen, who finished with 14 points, said the Eagles learned a valuable lesson from this latest encounter.

“That we can be beaten, and we just have to stay together as a team,” said Queen, who is still uncommitted but has a short list of colleges which include Maryland, Houston and Indiana. 

“Every day in practice we always prepare because anything can happen. We just kept our composure. It was a pretty competitive game, we just needed to lock in on defense, which we did late and came up clutch. “

McNeeley led all scorers with 19 points, connecting on 3-of-4 from beyond the 3-point arc, and hitting both of his free throw attempts.

“I knew the whole time we were going to win, my faith never wavered,” McNeeley said. “They were hitting shots like crazy in the first half. They hit a lot of 3s, so, it was closer than I expected. They had a really good first half, but we knew if we kept our head down and kept grinding, we would pull it out.

“We have so much talent on this team, it’s the starting six, I call it. It can be anyone’s night on any given night. I just keep that in mind. If I have a bad game, then a couple of games later, I will make up for it.”

Montverde has six GEICO national championship banners cascading from its rafters, which include 2013, ‘14, ‘15, ‘18, ‘21 and 2022. But Montverde was eliminated from a second three-peat national championship bid last year by eventual champion Link Academy from Branson, Missouri.

“We came up short last year, but that was best for us,” McNeeley said. “It made us so close as a team. We are brothers, and we are going to do everything it takes to win this year. ... We just have one goal, and that is to win the national championship.”

Prolific connected on 11 of its 3-point shots and were 9-of-10 from the free-throw line. Prolific, which does not have a mascot name, was led by the top-ranked junior in the country, AJ Dybantsa, with 18 points, while Tyran Strokes, the top-ranked sophomore, scored 17. 

Also, for Prolific, Mikey Lewis finished with 14, Vazoumana 10 and Sherrell with seven points and 10 rebounds.

Robert Wright scored 14 points with seven rebounds for Montverde while Asa Newell finished with 10.