By Amanda Perkins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
They were the favorite all season to win it all, and they did not disappoint; Fair Grove has once again taken the Class 3 state title, now going down in state history with a three-peat.
The Eagles topped the Principia Panthers 39-33 Thursday night at Mizzou Arena.
“It doesn’t mean as much to me as these kids do,” said Fair Grove head coach Gary Greene, choking back tears. “It’s just special because I’ve never been around a group that will do anything that you ask them to do and to compete like these guys do.”
A key to throwing Principia off their game was holding Dasia Scott, the reigning Class 2 Player of the Year, to just 6 points and 3 rebounds on the night compared to her 18-point and 12 rebound averages. Two early fouls limited her impact, and she would foul out in the final minutes of the contest.
“I just thought we defended exceptionally well,” said Coach Greene. “The job that Abbey (Green) did on (Scott), and then the fact that every other guy that was on the floor was always behind so they couldn’t throw that lob to her, was a pretty special defensive effort by our team.”
“For some reason, we don’t score points in championship games on this floor, but neither do the teams we’re playing, so good for us,” he added.
Fair Grove scored five field goals in the first while Principia struggled, connecting on only three of sixteen attempts.
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The Eagles extended their four-point lead in the second as Ashton Bell led the way with 6 points. Fair Grove entered halftime up 23-16.
Fair Grove’s shots from the charity stripe balanced out a rough third quarter from the field, which allowed them to keep pace with Principia. Each team scored 8 in the frame, with half of Fair Grove’s points coming from Camdyn Hart.
In the final minutes, Principia turned up the heat and outscored Fair Grove by one, but Emma Padgett came in clutch for the Eagles at the charity stripe with three of the team’s four free throws in the quarter. Principia went 11-48 from two-point range and only managed 7 free throws in the game, while Fair Grove doubled that total with 14 made.
Senior Camdyn Hart became emotional in the final seconds of the game. “Honestly, I was getting flashbacks of all the hard work we’ve put in,” she said. “I looked at the clock and just saw it going down and it just reminded me of the last two years again, and I realized that this is the last time we’re ever going to do it.”
Ashton Bell, senior, had similar feelings. “It’s bittersweet,” she said. “It’s our senior year and we’ve played together forever, so I feel like no matter what game it was this season, we just
played like it was our last because we want to spend as much time as we can together on the court…I just feel like this season, we knew that it was our last and we had to put our hearts into every single game we played.”
Senior Abbey Green reflected on her team’s district loss during her freshman year and the three state championships they’ve won since. “We all remember kind of losing that district game, and I remember just how aggressive that game was and how young we were and how much energy we had, and so taking that into sophomore year, we were just ready to go.”
Green said the team struggled through a tournament that year, then flipped the switch. “The team thought, ‘Guys, we’ve got this. We have the personnel, we have the skills, let’s go do this,’” she said. “And so we did, and once we accomplished that, it was just the standard and we wanted to keep beating the standard.”
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Shea Skouby will play volleyball in college, but she will cherish her senior basketball season. “Getting to go out with these girls that I’ve been playing with since elementary school, it means the world to me, because I’ll never get to play with them again,” she said. “And it’s sad, but it’s so much fun that we got to go out this way, together.”
Senior Brooke Daniels said this championship means even more than the others to her senior teammates, and she sung the praises of their younger team members, including sophomore Allie Sechler. “(Allie) guards me every day in practice and makes me go get the rebound, blocks me out, she does everything right,” said Daniels. “It’s just hard knowing that we are leaving them all behind.” She added that many overlook the underclassmen, to their detriment. “Fair Grove isn’t going away, trust me,” she said. “We have the best group that we could coming up, so everyone should be ready.”
“We got to grow up together and to get to this point together for three years,” said Daniels of her classmates. “That’s just crazy. We are just so thankful for each other and the opportunity we were given. There’s nothing better than teammates like that and a community that shows up for you like ours did today and yesterday.”
Fair Grove held Principia to their lowest point total of the year to cap off an incredible season by any standard. The Eagles ended with a 28-4 record, with three of the four losses to class 6 schools, and one to their competition in last year’s state title game. The team’s three-year record is 81-15.
“People are going to talk about them for a long time,” said Coach Greene. “They use the word ‘dynasty,’ I think maybe only twelve (schools) have ever won three in a row…now that we’re on that list, it just seems fitting. As we talk about dynasties, we talk about the best of the best, and that’s who they are.”
