The annual Rotary Tip-Off Classic in Winter Park has seen its share of remarkable high school basketball talent over the last three decades.

Among the tournament standouts since its inception in 1976 have been Daytona Beach Mainland’s George McCloud, Mike Polite and Vince Carter, Bishop Moore’s Owen Busch, Tony Atkins of Jones, Damien Wilkens of Dr. Phillips, Darius Washington from Edgewater and Nick Calathes of Lake Howell, to name a few.

Austin Rivers (Photo by Jim Redman)

Add Austin Rivers of Winter Park to that list. Just be sure not to leave out his teammates in the process.

The Wildcats won the Tip-Off Classic for only the third time behind 20 points and five rebounds from the nationally sought after junior. Winter Park was convincing in its 59-32 win over Winter Springs.

After entering the halftime break up 22-18, the Wildcats raced past the Bears in the third quarter to put the game out of reach early in the second half. Rivers and senior Robert Lovaglio led the charge by combining for 11 points during the team’s 17-3 run in the period.

“In the first half they got a lot of second chance opportunities because they do such a great job at getting the offensive rebound,” said Winter Park Coach David Bailey. “In the third quarter we did a nice job at keeping them out of the lane and did a great job of boxing them out.”

And they turned those defensive efforts into buckets on the other end of the floor.

Lovaglio capitalized on being given the open look by finishing with 13 points and six rebounds in the championship game. He was among several other Winter Park players that came up big in the win. Junior Brett Comer scored six points and dished out four assists while senior Adam Jones recorded a triple-double with 10 points, 11 rebounds and 10 blocked shots.

“In the second half we just wanted to come out and focus mainly on defense because we knew our defense would help dictate our offense,” said Jones afterwards. “This is the best defense we’ve played so far this year.”

After watching his team score just once from the field in the third quarter, Winter Springs Coach Travis Jones could only agree.

“Their defense is deceptively good,” he said of the Wildcats. “They really don’t let you get into your offense very well. We struggled with that.”

Winter Springs got 15 points from Brian Holmes and eight points from Luis Jacabo.

The tournament loss marked the third-straight in the title game for the Bears. They finished as runners-up to Winter Park in 2007 (led by Kyle McClanahan) and Orlando Christian Prep in 2008 (led by Tyshawn Patterson). Both losses came by one point each.

Winter Park escaped a tough challenge by Oak Ridge in the semifinals one night earlier to advance to the Tip-Off Classic finals for the eighth time.

“It’s a testament to the young guys, to how hard they work and how much they value winning and representing their school,” said Bailey.

The Wildcats are courting a team of seven seniors and five juniors who were dismantled in the state semifinals last season by Olympia. They opened the new season with a close loss to East Ridge.

Winning the Rotary Tip-Off Classic, at home in such a dominant fashion, should help set the tone from here on out.

“We had to go in hard because everybody knows Winter Springs is our rival,” said Rivers. “Going in we knew if we didn’t play hard we were going to lose and that was our mindset going into the night.”

– More Rotary Tip-Off Classic –

Zack McCann at Orlando Sentinel

Finals recap at Orlando Sentinel

Photos at Orlando Sentinel

Kevin Fritz history lesson at Central Florida Lifestyle