Chemistry. Friendship. Grit. Habits. Good teams regardless of sport often share these characteristics.
“I think all the guys on the team are best friends off the court. We always go to Chick-Fil-A, we always get runs, and we work together, and everybody loves each other,” senior Brody Featherston said.
The Raider basketball that had no seniors last year was building for the future returning all of last year’s starters from a team that finished 13-9. That team lost in the sub-state final to the eventual 2024 state champions SM Northwest.
The Raiders opened the season on a 13 game winning streak with seven of those wins being by 20 or more points. Their first loss came from SMNW.
As any team does, the Raiders dealt with their fair share of adversity throughout the season. Senior Calan Gregory started the season on the bench with a torn meniscus. Eight players were sick in the in-season tournament in Denver. Junior Drake DeBaun went down with a broken foot during the first round of sub-state. The pressure they faced from their peers and people in the building expecting success because of what they accomplished this season was additional pressure.
“People on the outside looking in at us, there’s a lot of buzz around our team being this good,” senior Luke Hampton said. “But we’ve been good about blocking out the noise and staying inside our circle and not letting people inside our circle.”
The Raiders proceeded to finish the regular season undefeated. During that time they clinched the No. 1 seed for the playoffs and a share of the Sunflower League title with SMNW. Sophomore Conor Kerrigan led the Raiders with 17 points per game and earned Sunflower League sophomore of the year and first team All-Sunflower League.
Along with Kerrigan, the Raiders had five other All-Sunflower League nominations including Debaun second team, junior Ben Allen third team, seniors Jadon Sautter and Calan Gregory along with junior Max McKenna getting honorable mention. The team was led by Sunflower League Coach of the Year Brett McFall.
“Winning the Sunflower Leagues in some cases is bigger than winning state,” McFall said. “It’s tougher there’s 14 teams and so on 13 nights you’ve got to be consistently good and we’re the best league in the state of Kansas and I’m so proud of what they did for those 13 nights.”
South hosted their first sub-state since 2021 where they played No.16 seed SMN. Even though the Bison were able to hold the lead most of the game, the Raiders scored 22 points in the fourth quarter allowing them to come back and beat the Bison 59-50 and advance to the sub-state final against Olathe South.
In the regular season matchup, the Raiders beat the Falcons 63-56. In this matchup, however, they would be without DeBaun after he sustained a season ending injury during the first sub-state game. Despite the injury to DeBaun the Raiders beat the Falcons 79-53 led by Allen with 23 points and Kerrigan with 20, securing South’s first state berth since 2019.
“One year of growth, one year of maturity and just the guys understanding what it takes to win these big time games led us to get the job done this year,” McFall said.
South played Maize High School in their first game of the 6A state tournament and for most of the game were able to hold the lead and keep the Eagles at arms reach. With 5:40 left in the final quarter Maize senior Alec Grill hit a three point shot to give them the lead and from there it was back and forth for the rest of the game winning 49-48. There were four lead changes in the last five minutes. With 0:06 left Maize senior Alan Hanna made a layup to give the Eagles the lead that they would hold the rest of the game. Allen and Kerrigan combined for 42 of the teams 48 points in the game both playing all 32 minutes.
“I just feel that hunger and feel the hurt from that loss,” Kerrigan said. “It’s really just gonna push us to work harder and hopefully motivate us to make a deeper run next year.”
For the seniors this being their last game was especially hard knowing they would never play together with this team again.
“The past two years working with these guys and just thinking about all we sacrificed and all the hours we put in and knowing it was the last time we would play together, it really hurt,” Sautter said.
Whether it was a practice or a game, this team was able to show up all year being consistent and working hard for four straight months. It was that consistency that led to a 21-2 season, the team’s best season since 2013 when they went 25-0 and won the 5A state title.
This team will be losing five seniors and have to strengthen the chemistry they had this year.
“One of our best attributes this year was our chemistry,” Allen said. “We hung out outside of practice whether it was going to get food together or just hanging out at somebody’s house, and that’s something we’re gonna have to bring in next year even though we will be missing the five seniors. We’re just gonna continue to strengthen that bond and hopefully repeat the success we had this year.”
Along with chemistry, Raider basketball was consistent every day practicing and playing with everything they had.
“Consistency made us good; we were the same team day in and day out. We had 75 practices and probably 70 of them were really good ones,” McFall said. “But we also had fun. It was a group with a lot of them who have known each other since elementary school, so the relationships they had on and off the court just made the season very fun.”
