SHAWNEE — For years, Claremore Christian girls basketball carried the painful identity of four-time loser of the “big one.”
That “big one,” of course, being the Heartland Christian Athletic Association championship.
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From 2019 through 2022, the Lady Warriors endured a stretch of four title-game defeats eerily reminiscent of the Buffalo Bills’ four-consecutive Super Bowl losses in the early 1990s. As if that weren’t enough, the next three seasons brought three semifinal exits.
A different stage, the same heartbreak.
However, Saturday afternoon at FireLake Arena in Shawnee, CCS finally rewrote the narrative.
Behind three double-digit scorers and a staggering 59-rebound effort, the Lady Warriors defeated Lakewood Christian 45-35 to claim the HCAA Class 2A championship, ending years of near-misses and cementing a breakthrough that had long felt overdue.
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“It’s very emotional. It’s very surreal,” CCS coach Katie Schulze said. “I called this my redemption season after last year, and I never had a full roster the entire season. So it’s just been beautiful to see these girls buy in and work hard and continue to grind and grit every game. It’s very surreal right now to finally be able to win.”
The victory was CCS’s second over the Lady Lions in seven days and capped a 17-7 season that closed on a seven-game winning streak with an average margin of 26.4 points.
Even in the long-awaited coronation, though, adversity lurked.
The Lady Warriors raced to an 18-5 lead in the first quarter behind early inside scoring and back-to-back 3-pointers from sophomore Brynlie Butler, but LCS clawed back with an 18-8 run spanning the second quarter and early third, trimming the deficit to 26-23 on a Bennie Bargas 3-pointer just seconds into the second half as CCS turnovers mounted.
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“At halftime, we went in and just kind of talked about, ‘Hey, don’t throw this away. You had it up [18-5], and then their best player actually went off the court in that second quarter,’” Schulze said. “It just seemed our nerves hit in that quarter, and [the message] was just relax. If you want this, you will win this, and you’ve got to want it more than the other team. They clearly went out and did that, and we also changed our defense a little bit.”
That was when senior Hannah Stewart delivered the defining stretch of the championship.
Stewart scored 7 of her 11 points in the third quarter, including a 3-pointer, as part of a decisive 13-1 run that rebuilt a comfortable margin and sent the Lady Warriors into the fourth leading 39-24.
She added 4 points in the final period, including the championship-clinching free throw, to secure another double-digit win and finally banish the program’s history of title-game frustration.
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“I just knew that we had a mission to do,” Stewart said. “I’m a senior, so I’m like, ‘We’ve got to finish this, and this is our last chance to win state.’ So I kind of just honed in and played my game.
“It makes me feel incredible, and I owe it all to my coach and my team,” she added. “I knew this was our year. I called it from the get-go, and our coach said it was our redemption season, so I knew we had to get it done.”
The triumph carried special significance for senior center Sophie Blair, who closed her career with an 11-point, 13-rebound double-double.
Her older sister Kaylee, a 2021 CCS graduate, had played in three of the Lady Warriors’ championship losses from 2019-21. Watching from the stands Saturday, Kaylee saw Sophie end the family’s title-game curse.
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“I’m just really grateful,” Blair said. “Last season was a bit of a struggle. We had a lot of sickness, but this year, our coach called it the redemption season, and we were just really focused on our mentality to have positive attitudes and just stay calm and play our best game. It’s very practical, but I just focus on boxing out and stay intentional every play on the court.”
Blair’s 13 boards anchored a remarkable rebounding display.
The teams combined for 102 total rebounds and 41 offensive, with CCS claiming 59 overall and holding a 21-20 edge on the offensive glass. Five Lady Warriors finished with at least 5 rebounds, including Hannah Gebhardt [10], Alayna Brown [7], Butler [6] and Stewart [5], while CCS also collected 13 team rebounds, awarded when no single player is credited with the rebound after a missed shot.
“Sophie Blair is a phenomenal rebounder; she’s averaging a double-double,” Schulze said. “We’ve just really been pushing that they have to rebound. They did what they were supposed to do from the beginning. They had a little bit of a collapse in the second quarter, but they pulled it out.”
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The rebounding dominance was magnified by LCS’s shooting struggles in the expansive arena.
Despite being known as a perimeter-oriented team, the Lady Lions struggled with the large, open setup and air-balled several 3-point attempts while shooting just 45.5% at the free-throw line and committing 21 turnovers, allowing the Lady Warriors to create separation even while battling their own inefficiency.
CCS converted only 7 of 20 free throws — all in the second half — and still surrendered 43 rebounds, including 23 defensive, to LCS while also committing 28 turnovers.
However, one player who seemed to not be as affected by faulty depth perception was Butler.
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The sophomore guard acclimated quickly to the cavernous sights of FireLake Arena, burying consecutive triples in the first quarter to give the Lady Warriors a 14-5 lead.
Later in the third quarter, her free throw immediately after the Lady Lions’ 3-pointer that cut the lead to one possession steadied CCS and ignited the 13-1 run, and her third 3-pointer moments later blew the game open.
“At first, I’m not going to lie, I was really confused because there were three different [3-point] lines,” Butler said. “My coach said shoot from the closest one, but I’d get to the line, and I’d be like, ‘I don’t know if this is the right one,’ so I just shot it and tried to focus on my fundamentals and tried to get it in there so I could help the team.
“It’s really an honor, but it’s pretty emotional knowing that all of my closest teammates are seniors, and they’re going to be gone next year,” she added about ending the championship drought. “But our team definitely has a lot of growth to make and has already been made.”
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Butler finished with 10 points, Brown added 8 and Gebhardt contributed 5 to complement the Blair-Stewart tandem, while LCS was led by Hope Roberts’ 15 points and 8 rebounds and Aurora Lucas’ 6 points and 11 boards.
As the Lady Warriors ceremoniously cut down the net, the label that had followed them for years was erased, saving them from a fate worse than the Buffalo Bills.
“I knew I had a solid group of seniors who had won in junior high, and we have been stuck in the semis for three years since their freshman year,” Schulze said. “I just really felt like, if this group would work hard, we could win it. I want to give my assistants — Chris Zehder and Hannah Schulze — a shoutout, too. I could not do what I do without my assistant coaches. They come in and work, and I think it’s the tag team of it that makes us who we are.
“Cutting that net, again, it’s a surreal feeling right now.”
