COLUMBIA, MO – March 20, 2025, is a day Webster Groves sophomore Scottie Adkinson will always remember.
In the morning, Adkinson was announced as Missouri’s Gatorade Player-of-the-Year.
In the evening, he showed why.
Adkinson scored 29 points, including 18 in the second half to lead Webster Groves to a 67-56 victory over Summit Christian in the Class 5 championship game of the MSHSAA Show-Me Showdown Thursday at Mizzou Arena.
Webster Groves (27-5) won its sixth state championship in boys basketball and are now 6-0 in their last six state title game appearances.
Adkinson, who scored 30 points in the state semifinal victory over Westminster, had to survive a Summit Christian defense designed to stop him. The Eagles used their best perimeter defender to guard him, blitzed him on ball screens, and had Micheal Thomas III, one of the state’s best shot blockers, lurking in the paint awaiting his arrival.
“We knew it would be a challenge,” Summit Christian coach Tellus Truesdale said. “Our hope was to have Thomas shadowing (Adkinson) – like a linebacker against a running quarterback – and hope they’re not hitting shots from the outside.”
Adkinson scored 11 points in the first half on 5-for-9 shooting, but his major contributions occurred on defense.
His tenacious, on-ball defense forced a five-second violation. He blocked a shot, leaped to save it from going out-of-bounds, and threw it off a Summit Christian leg to retain possession. Adkinson led the Statesmen in rebounds and assists as the teams headed to the halftime locker room with Webster Groves clinging to a 32-28 lead.
“Recruiting rankings and sugared cereal are both artificial,” Webster Groves coach Justin Mathes said. “I lose track of Scottie’s four-and-half stars, three marshmallows and two balloons. The conversation around him needs to start with ‘winner.’ He was able to block out everything and focus on winning.”
In the second half, nothing blocked Adkinson’s path to the rim and his pursuit of a championship.
He drove through the lane and scored a tough ‘and-1.’ He drove and kicked to junior Quincy Williams for a triple. A beautiful spin move in the paint gave him his 10th point of the quarter and the Statesmen took a 47-41 lead into the fourth.
“He’s tough, man,” Truesdale said of Adkinson. “Even if you try to deny him the ball, he’s going to get it at some point. He’s getting downhill, he’s getting ‘and-1’s.’ Maybe we should have tried to double-team him a little bit more, but I felt like every time we ran two (defenders) at him, he found a guy and they hit a shot. You’re picking your poison.”
The antidote for Summit Christian (27-5) came from the school’s all-time leading scorer Max Rieger, who scored 19 of his 25 points in the second half. He made his first two 3-point attempts, then took his game inside with a crafty blend of post moves.
“All year I would try to get to the rim, and when they would start playing back, it would open it up for me to start hitting threes. Tonight, it was different. I hit some threes, they stepped up and then I was able to attack the hoop,” said Rieger, who will play at Columbia College.
Rieger converted a slick, left-handed flip shot to slice the deficit to 51-50 midway through the fourth quarter before Webster Groves made a series of winning plays, starting with a right wing 3-ball by Williams.
“It’s what I’ve been working on all year. I practice those shots at practice, before practice and after practice. I trusted my teammates (to find me) and I trusted myself,” Williams said.
With Adkinson double-teamed on every touch, he did his work off-ball, setting a back screen to open up Carl Whitehead for a tough conversion over the outstretched reach of the lurking Thomas to make it 56-50.
“We always talk about ‘TTW’ – Toughest Team Wins – and we did that tonight,” Adkinson said.
With just over two minutes remaining, Summit Christian decided to send Webster Groves to the free throw line, starting with freshman Miles Simpson, who promptly swished 2-of-2.
“I don’t really get nervous,” Simpson said. “At the start of the season, I wasn’t really hitting my free throws and I just got in the gym and worked on it, and now they’re falling. I felt no pressure at all.”
In all, Webster Groves went 13-of-16 from the free throw line in the fourth quarter. Adkinson went 6-for-6 and put the finishing touches on his perfect day by forcing a Summit Christian backcourt violation.
“(Gatorade Player of the Year) feels good, but more importantly, I wanted to be a state champion,” Adkinson said.
For Webster Groves, the journey to a state title was non-linear. The Statesmen were 4-3 on Dec. 28 after a 19-point thumping at the hands of Marquette.
“We’re sitting at 4-3 in December and the most overrated team in the state by far, but we got a lot tougher, more together, started practicing more competitively and the trust grew,” Mathes said.
Whitehead added, “The key this year was everybody playing as a team. Last year, we weren’t as together, the trust was not there to make a run like this.”
On Thursday, that trust was on display from the start. Sophomore Jackson Tabash drained two jump shots to jumpstart the offense in the first quarter. Williams drained three triples, each when the Statesmen needed to halt a Summit Christian run. Simpson and Whitehead contributed 10 points apiece.
“If you’re going to make a run like this, you’ve got to have guys step up. You’ve got to have big-time players making big-time plays,” Mathes said.
And the biggest-time player showed why he was named the best player in Missouri.
“It starts in practice,” Adkinson said. “The black (jerseyed) team works us every day. They prepared me for these moments.”
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