By Michael Cignoli (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
OZARK — For a few moments, Brayden Shorter was taller than anyone else on the court.
That tends to happen when fans put you on their shoulders — and they had good reason to do it.
The Kickapoo senior scored 28 points, leading the Chiefs to a 68-60 victory over a previously unbeaten Nixa squad in the Class 6 District 5 championship game on Monday night at Ozark High School.
Shorter hit four three-pointers in the first quarter and the Chiefs rode the momentum well into the second, building a 20-point first-half lead against the team that dealt them a season-ending loss in last year’s district championship game.
The Eagles cut the deficit to five points with about 50 seconds remaining, but the Chiefs withstood the late rally and secured a long-awaited revenge victory over their archrivals — and their fourth district championship in the past five seasons.
After the final horn sounded and Shorter grabbed the championship plaque, fans celebrated the victory by storming the court and lifting him and classmates Landon Keisker and Trae Oetting on their shoulders.
It was a much different feeling than what the trio experienced a year ago.
“I’ve been dreaming of this game since last year when they beat us,” Shorter said. “The feeling of just hearing them cheering after the game and knowing I didn’t play my best out there and we didn’t play our best and we lost that game. It just feels amazing to come out here and play the game we did as a team and have the game I did, because I don’t think I’m ever going to forget this game for the rest of my life.”
One additional reason the game was particularly memorable?
Kickapoo’s second-leading scorer was Shorter’s brother, sophomore Jackson Shorter. Together, the Shorter brothers combined to score 29 of Kickapoo’s 33 first-half points.
Jackson Shorter finished the game with 19, including 10 in the second quarter.
“Brayden lives for these moments,” Kickapoo coach Mitch McHenry said. “He doesn’t shy away from these moments. And I thought Jackson did a great job at finishing at the basket. He had to play longer stretches than he’s used to because (senior Harrison Doennig) got in trouble in the first half and I thought he was a difference-maker being able to finish at the basket like he did.”
Brayden Shorter scored 14 of his points in the first quarter as the Chiefs built a 21-8 lead.
“Going into the game, I knew I was hot because at Kickapoo when we were doing shootaround I didn’t miss a shot,” he said. “In the other gym, I didn’t miss a shot. I was just coming into the game and every shot I shot off my fingertips, I thought it was going in. I think that helped me a lot.”
The Chiefs fed off that energy and built a 31-11 lead midway through the second quarter. But the Eagles closed the half on a 12-2 run, cutting the deficit to 10 points at the halftime break.
“If you told us before the game we were going to have a 10-point lead at halftime, we would have taken it — whether we were up 20 in the first half or not,” McHenry said. “We would have taken a 10-point lead at halftime. So at half, we just had to hit the reset button and relax and come back out and put 16 minutes together.”
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME
Nixa capitalized on a couple Kickapoo errors to close the gap to six points at two separate points in the third quarter. Each time, the Chiefs responded with runs of their own and built an 11-point lead entering the fourth quarter.
That proved to be significant, as the Eagles nearly pulled off what would have been their second improbable come-from-behind victory over the Chiefs of the year.
The Eagles trailed Kickapoo by seven points with 2:50 remaining in the regular-season meeting between the schools, only to come all the way back to win in regulation.
Kickapoo led the rematch 63-52 with 1:35 to go, but Nixa went on an 8-2 run over the next 44 seconds to make the score 65-60 with 51 seconds to play. All eight of Nixa’s points came from senior Kael Combs, who finished with a game-high 36.
“They literally play to the end,” Nixa coach Brock Blansit said. “I don’t know how to explain it, unless you’re around these guys all the time. I mean, they really believed that they were going to pull that thing out. Being down 10 with about a minute left, I see people leaving and one of our kids says ‘We’re going to come back and win this thing.’”
But the Eagles came up empty on their next two possessions, allowing Kickapoo to close out a game they never trailed from the free-throw line.
“It feels very good. I have high blood pressure right now,” McHenry said. “It’s going to feel good for a while. We made it really, really exciting. We made it really exciting. But I’m proud of our guys. They battled. We executed at a high level. We had some lapses, but with a team like that and the pressure they put on you defensively and offensively, for us to lead pretty much the whole game and to really take their runs shows just a lot of composure and a lot of our poise from our guys over the course of four quarters.”
Kickapoo’s late-game ball management was key to holding on, McHenry said.
“For the most part, I thought we did a good job of connecting passes two or three at a time – which allowed us to find some guys on the backside of their press,” the coach added. “Here’s the thing: We did not do that the first time we played them. We were up seven. We did it once and got free throws and then we went three or four straight possessions of not doing that. So for our kids — in a bigger environment with more at stake — for them to be a lot more consistent with that just shows it’s them. It’s them that do it. It’s not anything that we did coaching-wise. It’s them learning from mistakes throughout the year and improving and fixing it in a game like this.”
In doing so, the Chiefs secured what was arguably their second straight upset victory.
The Chiefs were unranked in the final-regular season state rankings but secured the No. 2 seed in the tournament. They beat Republic (ranked sixth, seeded third) in the semifinals and then knocked off top-seeded, second-ranked Nixa.
“We’ve improved the whole year,” McHenry said. “This season has been tough. We’ve played a hard schedule and it’s been tough and there have been tough moments. We played a schedule where if we didn’t bring it and play well, we were going to get beat. I think that is what sets you up for these opportunities.”
The Eagles, who were the first team in school history to record an undefeated regular season, finished the year 28-1.
“I really thought we got a lot of good shots,” Blansit said. “A lot of wide open looks that we’ve made all year and then they weren’t falling. That’s just the way it goes. In a one-and-done situation, that’s how it is.”
Doennig and Oetting added nine points apiece for Kickapoo (21-8), which will face District 6 champion Lee’s Summit West (26-3) in the quarterfinals. Tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m. Friday at Southwest Baptist University.
“I think we really deserve this,” Brayden Shorter said. “I think we’ve been working hard. We’ve gone through a lot of adversity and gone through a lot of tough, tough times. We’ve had a lot of lows, but we’ve also had a lot of highs and I think this is probably our best high. It just feels so good. I just can’t stop smiling.”
KICKAPOO (21-8) 21 12 15 20 — 68
NIXA (28-1) 8 15 14 23 — 60
