Crain, Williams both hit 1,000-point milestone

Late in the fourth quarter of her Senior Night game, Abigail Crain was on the verge of something special.

The Windermere High senior went into the game against South Lake — Tuesday, Jan. 19 — needing 30 points to get to the 1,000-point mark of her high school career.

After a rebound fell to Windermere, Crain received the outlet pass before sprinting down court — knocking down the two-pointer while being fouled for the old-timey three-point play. That free throw would take her to quadruple digits.

“I didn’t know if the coaches told the bench or anything, but throughout the game, once I got within 10 points, one of my assistant coaches would continuously update me on how many more I needed, and at one point, she was like, ‘Three,’” Crain said. “Then I told my teammate … and then she told everyone else, so everyone knew that was the free throw that I needed, and once I hit it, they swarmed up and hugged me.”

A few days later, down the road on the outskirts of Tampa, another local was celebrating the same feat.

Going into Windermere Prep’s road game Saturday, Jan. 23, at Seffner, senior Zavien Williams was only 11 points away from achieving the milestone. Despite missing his first couple of shots, Williams rallied and scored 14 points, with the big moment coming from a shot from deep.

“At that moment, I celebrated to my heart’s content, because I was like, ‘Shoot, I just got it,’” Williams said. “And then after the play, after it stopped, I went over to mom, and I was like, ‘Did you videotape that shot?’ And she said, ‘I did.’”

Both record-breaking moments came in the waning hours of the regular season, but for both Crain and Williams, the fact it was able to happen at all is a blessing.

After her worries about the season not happening subsided following the announcement of the year being a go for the FHSAA, Crain hunkered down and set her sights on 1,000 points. The only issue: Windermere had numerous games canceled, which ate away at her opportunities.

“We had eight or nine games left, and I forget how much I was away from things — because a bunch of our games had gotten canceled — so that started making me kind of nervous, like, ‘Oh, this isn’t looking too good for this,’” Crain said. 

While Crain dealt with a season filled with cancellations, Williams’ season has been a bit more normal. Although there was the worry about a shortened season that never came to be, the Lakers were able to get most of their games played.

For both, hitting the 1,000-point mark is something they see as a culmination of years of effort. 

Williams recalled how tough his freshman and sophomore seasons were, before he — and the program — turned it around when head coach Brian Hoff arrived.

“That’s how my mindset shifted,” said Williams, who will play at Rhodes College in the fall. “It shifted from, ‘We’re OK, but it’s all about getting points,’ to, ‘Let’s win together as a team.’”

Crain recalled the first high school tryout before starting her freshman year at the brand-new school, when she badly turned the ball over. Then-head coach Misty Cox told her, “If you’re going to be playing varsity basketball, you’re going to have to cut that stuff out.”

The only words Crain heard were the ones about her playing on the varsity team.

Since then, a lot had changed, and Crain has gone from fumbling away balls as a freshman to preparing to play Division 1 at Belmont University in the fall.

“I’ve truly developed my skills and my IQ under her, and it was a great learning experience,” Crain said. “I’m leaving Windermere a completely different player than how I was coming in.”