COLUMBIA, MO – Oak Park senior Caleb Estes had been there before.
With the Northmen facing a 13-point deficit late in the third quarter, Estes never wavered in his belief that his team would make the plays necessary to win the Class 6 state title.
“We’ve overcome a lot of deficits this year. We’ve been through adversity so many times, it really wasn’t new to us. We knew what we needed to do to win this game,” Estes said.
Estes’ thunderous dunk punctuated a brilliant comeback as Oak Park defeated Chaminade 68-60 to capture the Class 6 championship Thursday at the MSHSAA Show-Me Showdown at Mizzou Arena.
Oak Park (31-1), which won its 29th consecutive game, won its first state title in boys basketball in school history.
“It means the world,” Estes said. “If you play high school basketball, you want to win state. To be able to win the first state championship for our school, it can’t get any better.”
Chaminade (20-11) used the skill and size of twin brothers Jamo and Hadi White and the craftiness of junior Jonny Jordan to open a 48-35 lead with three minutes remaining in the third quarter.
“In the third quarter we lost sight of what we were supposed to be doing, but I never had a doubt that we were going to win,” Oak Park coach Sherron Collins said. “I know the resilience of this group. We just had to get back on track.”
The locomotive began with a three-ball by Adam Tanner and layups by Zeek Brown and Josh Kori. Brown led the Northmen with 18 points by finding open areas in the paint while 6-foot-9 Jamo White and 6-foot-8 Hadi White were occupied elsewhere.
“We knew Corbin (Allen) and Josh (Kori) had the big matchups. They had their hands full, so we had to attack and do all the little things,” Brown said.
A 9-1 run to end the third quarter was aided by two drawn charges by Kori and closed the Northmen deficit to 49-44. But senior captain and District 8 player-of-the-year Corbin Allen gingerly limped back to the huddle prior to the fourth after suffering a lower body injury.
“Our trainer wrapped me up and told me he can’t do much. I was going to have to fight through the pain,” Allen said. “It was my last game and I wasn’t going to come off that court. I had to go out and give it my all.”
After Estes opened the quarter with a triple, Allen lined up two corner threes from the exact same spot to give Oak Park a 53-51 lead – its first lead since the 3:14 mark of the first quarter.
“I’m always ready for that moment,” Allen said.
Until that barrage of threes, Oak Park was 3-for-14 from long distance. The deep ball precision pulled Chaminade out of the 1-2-2 zone that had kept the Northmen contained for most of the game.
“We were just trying to get stops and it was working so we stuck with it,” Chaminade senior Collin Perry said. “It was a good gameplan, but they hit some tough shots down the stretch.”
With the Northmen leading 55-53, Chaminade junior Jamo White fouled out with 2:38 remaining. It allowed Oak Park to spread the floor, force Hadi White to defend the perimeter, and the Northmen attacked the paint with straight-line drives.
“We wanted to attack their bigs from the corners because that’s where we felt their weakness was. Their bigs weren’t as quick as our guards and we could get past them,” Collins said.
Brown converted a three-point play in the lane, Tanner scored on an out-of-bounds play, and when Estes broke loose for a breakaway dunk, the Oak Park bench and student body entered euphoria.
“It means a lot,” Allen said. “We had a big crowd of students who came out to watch us. There were watch parties going on, so we didn’t want to disappoint all our people who support us.”
For Collins, who won an NCAA national championship as a Kansas Jayhawk guard in 2008, this one felt different.
“I won one playing, but this feels way better. To do something that’s never been done at Oak Park and to help these young men reach goals that I was able to reach, I’d rather have it no other way,” he said.
Chaminade won five consecutive playoff games and reached the Class 6 championship game for the second successive season, but once again saw its opponent make the game-winning plays in the fourth quarter.
“It was fight out there,” Chaminade coach Frank Bennett said. “We did a pretty good job for about 27 minutes, but you have to play the full 32 and we fell short. If we have a few more shots go in and take care of the ball a little bit better, we’re on the other side of this thing.”
And for Oak Park, the messiness of the process, which included a semifinal loss to Chaminade last season, made the reward even sweeter.
“We had a goal from last year because we felt like we let one slip away against (Chaminade),” Collins said. “We’ve been through a lot within our program, a couple arguments, some blowups, and we stuck the course. Seeing the payoff for how hard these guys worked all year, it’s worth everything.”
Photo Gallery from this game click here: https://benvessa.smugmug.com/Boys-Basketball-Photos/Boys-Basketball-2024-25/Oak-Park-vs-Chaminade-Class-6-championship
