IWA’s title win is thing of bee-uty
COLUMBIA, Mo. – A stuffed bumblebee nicknamed Mr. Honey was credited with helping bring peace and harmony to a dysfunctional Blue Springs girls basketball team this season.
In the end, though, it couldn’t help the Wildcats sting the powerful Red Knights from Incarnate Word Academy in the Class 5 state title game Saturday.
Coach Mark Spigarelli’s team didn’t protect the ball well enough – it turned it over 18 times to an Incarnate team that was on it like a bunch of ravenous pitbulls on a t-bone steak – and, largely as a result, fell 52-43 to the Red Knights at Mizzou Arena.
The state title is Incarnate’s third overall. The Red Knights also won state crowns in 1995 and 2006.
“I can’t really describe the feeling,” said Incarnate star forward Jazmin Hitchens when asked about winning the title. “We deserved it. We deserved it. And it feels great to know that all that hard work paid off.”
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After a bad second quarter left them trailing the Wildcats 22-20 at halftime, the Red Knights (30-1) started the third quarter with a flourish as they did on a number of occasions over the course of the season. Brittany Carter hit a three-pointer to get her team the lead back and moments later hit another long shot and Chloe Nelson added two layups during a 13-3 run that put the momentum back on the side of IWA.
“We really didn’t make a whole lot of adjustments,” said Incarnate coach Dan Rolfes. “We just re-emphasized our key points for the game. We needed to stop dribble penetration, we needed to rebound and then take care of the basketball.”
“We told ourselves in the locker room that we’ve been down by more,” added Hitchens. “And literally in that St. Joe (district title) game…it took us seconds to catch up to St. Joe (from a seven-point halftime deficit) so two points was nothing to us. It was just us knowing that we’re really good at coming out in the third quarter and the first part of the third quarter so we just prided ourselves and did what needed to be done.”
While seniors Hitchens and Nelson led the way offensively in IWA’s semifinal win over Fort Zumwalt West Thursday with 18 and 19 points, respectively, it was juniors Brianna Puni and Brittany Carter who had the most points in the title game. Puni had a team-high 14 to go along with 10 rebounds and Carter had 12.
“You can’t do it without everybody and so I’m just really proud of our juniors for stepping up,” said Nelson, who had nine points. “They knew what they needed to do and that’s what makes our team so strong is that everybody does step up. That’s what got us a state championship.”
Blue Springs, which also lost to Nixa in the state title game last year, didn’t go down easily. The Wildcats pulled to within two points late in the third quarter. However, IWA outscored them 14-7 in the first six minutes of the fourth quarter to all but put the game away.
“We’re a young team and I think it showed up in the fourth quarter,” said Spigarelli. “It wasn’t an effort thing. We just turned the ball over too many times in the fourth quarter.”
Even though the Red Knights held a comfortable lead for most of the fourth quarter there were still some uncomfortable moments for Rolfes. The first came with five minutes left when Nelson, who is headed to Illinois State University next fall, crumpled to the floor after a collision and didn’t move very much for several seconds.
“I’m fine,” she said after the game. “I’m feeling pretty good right now. I got the wind knocked out of me. It’s alright. I just had to get my breath.”
Hitchens, a Ball State University recruit who finished with eight points and a game-high five steals, then fouled out with just over two minutes remaining. But the Red Knights had the game pretty much in hand at that point. Rolfes was more worried when Hitchens picked up her third foul with 22 second left in the second quarter.
“Obviously it was a big concern,” he said. “And you could see right out of the half they were trying to dribble penetrate right at Jazmin to get her to get her fourth real quick. And credit Jazmin (because) it wasn’t until later on that she picked up another foul so she did a good job of stopping on dribble penetration.”
“I really felt that this was a game where our preparation throughout the year and the schedule that we play and the big games that we play prepared us for this game tonight,” Rolfes added.
The win helped Nelson and Hitchens make good on an agreement they had made with each other a while back.
“From (2008) on, me and Chloe like made a promise to each other that we were going to get to state our senior year and win it,” Hitchens said. “That’s been our motive since our junior year to now and we took it really seriously. It’s been like our motto. So I’m proud of both of us for keeping our pact.”
Rolfes, who coached the 2006 team that won state and now has led the Red Knights to five final fours in 10 seasons, said this team stands above all his other teams in at least one aspect.
“I think this team is just so well balanced,” he commented. “I think that was a big reason to our success. You know, we’ve got an outstanding point guard. We have a couple people who can really shoot it. We’ve got an athletic 3-4 player in Jazmin who can do so many things and then we’ve got Brianna (Puni) and Rita (Flynn) inside that are big and can bang in there. I think out of the 10 years this is the most balanced team that I’ve had.”
Still, the Wildcats thought that with Mr. Honey on their bench with them they could get it done.
“The whole exercise was they passed the bee to each other and said positive things about each other,” Spigarelli said. “Some of the people that had friction, I thought that was a big breakthrough. They said positive things, and I thought that really helped us in the season a great deal. I know it looks pretty crazy to the casual observer, but I don’t care about that. If it worked and drew us closer together, I could live with looking stupid.”
The Wildcats (26-4) were led offensively by Cherisse Burns, who scored 16 points.
The Red Knights will miss Nelson and Hitchens next season, but Rolfes should again have a solid team with Puni, Carter and Flynn to build around.
Still, it will be hard for him to put together a team as good as the one that just won state. It came one win short of perfection – the Red Knights lost 52-49 to Chicago Whitney Young at mid-season after leading by 11 after three quarters – and one win short of tying the school record of 31 victories set by the 2006 team.
“You could just see the confidence oozing out of Rock Bridge when we lost (in the state final in 2008),” Rolfes said. “You could see it, you could feel it. I could feel that confidence with our team this year. They were confident that with no matter what happened, they knew we would have an answer.”
