Parkland High School boys basketball head coach Andy Stephens doesn’t think that his team was an underdog on its postseason run the last few weeks. The Trojans perennially play their best basketball when the lights shine the brightest in the postseason.

Parkland won three straight games on its way to its second straight District 11 6A title and then won two consecutive games in the state tournament to reach the quarterfinals for the first time since 2016. The Trojans’ season came to an end last Saturday to defending 6A champion Roman Catholic, the same team that ended that magical 2016 season.

“Roman is a solid team,” said Stephens. “They are big, fast, and always have great teams with high level college recruits. That obviously makes it a challenge, but our guys certainly fought and didn’t back down. Their size and strength just got to us in the second half. I wish we would have made a couple more shots, but it wasn’t like they weren’t trying to make them. They just didn’t go in today and some of them would have helped keep us in it.”

Parkland finished with a 20-10 overall record and reached many of its goals, despite not having the top seed in the district or conference tournaments or being the perceived “favorites” to win.

“Winning districts will be a memory our guys can always cherish and will never forget,” Stephens said. “They all believed and worked very hard to achieve that goal. I am extremely proud of what our guys accomplished this year and extremely proud in the fact they continued to believe and work hard the entire season.”

Matt Ray, Joey Gerbasio, Blake Bednar and Gio Escalona are the four seniors that will graduate from the program. They certainly left their legacies.

“The seniors were outstanding this year, all four of them,” said Stephens. “Matt, Joey, Blake and Gio. Their determination, positive attitude and leadership both vocal and non-vocal guided our team to a successful season. We have a good group coming back, but we’re going to miss our seniors. They created memories that they’ll remember forever. I thanked them for allowing me to be with them on this ride. This was really a fun group to be around.”