Men’s basketball team wins 1st place at State 

Arianna Peper
Editor in Chief

“I just think back to that moment [in games] where you’re up one [point], and they got all the momentum, and you gotta answer,” head Varsity basketball coach Justin Mathes said about the journey to State.

On Thursday, March 20, the men’s basketball team won the State Championship title after playing against Summit Christian Academy in the finals at Mizzou. Webster won with a score of 67-56.

“I know how much this group invested both in terms of working hard and how much they cared about each other, so it’s almost just a relief to see all that hard work pay off as a coach,” Mathes said.

In the championship game against Summit Christian Academy, Mathes said one particular moment stood out to him.

Mathes said, “I’ve been fortunate to win two State titles as an assistant and now two as a head coach, and there’s always that moment that you look back on like, you know, that was the gut check or whatever you want to call it where you kind of had to prove that you were worthy of being a champion.”

Mathes said Summit Christian was a really good team; it had a senior who scored 25 points on Webster and a player inside who was a good shot blocker as well.

“We’re in a battle with them, and we’re up one with about three-and-a-half [minutes] to play. They’ve got all the momentum at that point in the game, and Scottie comes down, gets a paint touch, draws two defenders, makes the right play, kicks it to [junior] Quincy [Williams], and he hits a big three to put us up four, and we kind of had control of the game from that moment on,” Mathes added.

About winning State, senior Carl Whitehead Jr. said, “It means a lot. Last year we fell short to Vianney in the second round, and the same for the year before that, so to get back to where we were my freshman year [2022] really means a lot.”

This year, Webster won against Vianney with a score 76-70 in the Class 5 District ll Championship game on March 10. Following this, Webster competed in the State Quarterfinals against Sikeston on its home court and defeated it with a score of 71-70, bringing Webster to to the final four.

In the final four, the team defeated Westminster Christian Academy 66-50.

Mathes said, “Now, what I think is really cool, and what’s unique about Webster is how much it means to our alumni and kids in the school and what it means to the community, and we had support all the way through.”

At the Semi-finals, athletics director Chris Johnson estimated about 200 students attended and said the school took four buses down to Mizzou while some students transported themselves.

Johnson also said he believes around 400-500 Webster community members and students attended the championship finals.

“I think it just shows how much our students love this school and interacting with each other. We had great teacher support as well; a handful of teachers stepped up to ride the buses [to the semi-finals] cause had you not had that teacher support supervision to actually transport the students to Columbia, we wouldn’t have been able to offer those buses,” Johnson said.

“I think when you see the amount of support and how much people love being around things that are very positive, like sports and athletics and success, it just really makes you appreciate the school we have,” Johnson added.

Sophomore Scottie Adkinson said what stood out to him in the journey to State was “the way most of our guys stepped up leading up to the playoffs. A lot of people stepped up in big games, and I feel like that what made the job get done for us.”

Overall, Webster’s team went 27 and five for its season record.

Leading up to State, the team focused a lot on its strategies working together in each game.

In the pre-season, Mathes said the team was ”very hyped up and everyone thought we’re gonna be really good and in reality, we were very average and very inconsistent. We could beat anybody, but we could also lose to anybody on the wrong night. So that was something we talked about all season, was like, you know, the playoffs they might not come down to what our best game looks like.”

“It’s ‘Can we win on our worst night when we’re not having a good shooting night, when the other teams, you know, playing out of their minds and can you can you overcome that?’” Mathes said.

Whitehead said, “We just knew that if we wanted to beat better teams, we were gonna have to play good on both ends of the floor.”

“It wasn’t just gonna be we’re gonna shoot 50% from three every night because that’s not always gonna be the case. Some days you’re going to have games where you don’t shoot well, and that definitely happened to us, and we were just able to play great at both ends of the floor,” Whitehead added.

Senior Eddie Peplow said he believes the team’s success this season came from “the way we worked hard in practice every single day. We also focused on the way that we play, scouting out other teams and knowing what to do to stop them.”

Another main focus of the team that several players highlighted was the team “staying together.”

Freshman Miles Simpson said, “I’d say all of us staying together and playing as a team [made a difference]. Not becoming individuals and not one of us trying to be the ‘superhero’ on the team. To make us win we just all played together.”

Adkinson also believed working as a team benefited them overall. He said, “Staying together, you know even through the tough games that we lost early on in the season and in the midway point. I think that was more of the building point for us, and we did that.”

Mathes said as the season progressed, “We played so many close games, and I think people are gonna remember them for a variety of reasons, but for me, I’m just most proud of– I thought we got a lot better from day one to March.”

As for the upcoming seasons, Mathes said, “We’ve got a good number of returning letter winners, and I’m excited about the future, but I also know that we’re losing a great senior class, and we’re gonna need guys to step up to fill those roles.”

This year, the men’s Varsity basketball team has five seniors graduating.
About the journey to State, Mathes said, “We always say Statesmen Nation, and I thought they had our backs all the way through, and you know, sometimes you get to host in the playoffs and sometimes you have to go on the road, and we were on the road every single game. So them showing up and showing out, I thought made a huge difference and pushed us over the top.”

“I just want to say a huge thank you to everybody who supported the team and stuck with us,” Mathes added.

Arianna Peper–Junior Editor/Business Manager This will be  Arianna Peper’s second year on ECHO staff. She made several contributions while taking journalism class her freshman year.

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