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Raiders Seeking Playoff Seed

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By DAREK SHARP, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 19, 2008

PLANT CITY - The all-time playoff history of Plant City High girls basketball, to put it nicely, does not take up much space in the record books.

Bluntly: The Raiders have one postseason victory, ever.

That note aside, what's going on this season is pretty special.

Plant City can now mention playoff for the first time in a while. The Raiders have not had a winning season, or even close to one, since the early 1990s.

"Oh, I don't know. I don't know if I get the girls really excited about how we might make the playoffs ... or just try and lay low with it," said Raider head coach Ginger Forte, who is thrilled with the team's outlook.

Entering Thursday's game against Riverview, the Raiders were 10-4 and set to become the No. 3 seed for the upcoming District 6A-8 tournament. Last year, the Raiders went 1-11 in the league and were dead last.

Last year, even with the overall mark of 5-14, Plant City had several promising players. This season, two more are at full health and have been enormous with their contributions.

Jade Forte, Ginger Forte's daughter, has been the biggest addition. The sophomore is tied with fourth-year starter Sade Dunkley for the team lead in scoring.

Jade Forte's breakout game was the one that landed the Raiders in their top-three seed for the district tourney, a 21-point performance against Lakeland in a 55-42 road win on Jan. 10.

Forte, Dunkley, Quet Shaw, Collisha Walker and Tekeyah Clark all have scored at least 100 points each this season. Last year, Dunkley scored 206 and Clark finished with 116.

"We have such good balance, really, all of them are threats to score," Ginger Forte said. "I knew they could do this, it was just a matter of it coming to them."

Forte said that it was actually a loss that got the Raiders' confidence level up. After getting blown out early by defending district champ Sarasota, the Raiders had a double-digit lead before falling to the Sailors 51-49 on Dec. 7.

That's significant because Sarasota is the team Plant City will, if all goes according to form, need to defeat in the district semifinals with a trip to the playoffs at stake.

The Raiders have a strong pair of opponents to finish out the regular season. They are at 15-win Freedom on Tuesday and then host Plant, which was 16-4 entering the week, on Thursday.

Reporter Darek Sharp can be reached at dsharp@tampatrib .com.

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