UIL State Tournament: 2A-4A-6A Championship Recaps

TexasHoopsRivals recaps all 3 title games from Saturday at the UIL State Tournament, concluding the 2020-21 season of Texas High School basketball.

Zhuric Phelps capped a stellar HS career with yet another stellar postseason performance, finishing with 29 points and 5 boards on an 11-17 shooting night. Phelps has been the heartbeat of this Duncanville group in this COVID altered season, so it was only fitting that the school's 7th state championship had the SMU signee's fingerprints all over it.

Phelps wasn't alone in his efficient scoring night, as fellow senior Juan Reyna won his 4th state championship (1 TAPPS, 3 UIL), with a 3-6 shooting display from behind the arc. Damon Nicholas and CJ Ford both totaled 7 points, while sophomore Ron Holland added 6 and a team high 8 rebounds for the Panthers 3rd straight championship. With Ford, Holland, Cam Barnes and Davon Sykes all returning next year, and a pipeline of talent from the junior high in place, it's hard to see when head coach David Peavy's first postseason loss will arrive; He is now 19-0 in the playoffs at the helm for the Panthers.

For Westlake, Kansas bound KJ Adams gave Duncanville a real challenge in the frontcourt, stuffing the stat sheet with a double-double of 20 points and 12 boards. The Chaps were helped by 15 points from Cade Mankle, who hit 4 threes to keep Duncanville from truly extending its lead. Though they kept it close for the majority of the game, Westlake could never get it to a single possession game in the 4th due to the play of Phelps and ended up falling by 13, though the game was much closer than the final score indicated.

Argyle used the familiar game plan of exploiting size mismatches and smothering defense to claim its first state title since 2011, with Skylar McCurry's 4 three pointers earning him the nod for title game MVP. Head Coach Russell Perkins must have been pleased with how his team followed the script for the Eagles to be successful; shooting north of 50% from the floor and holding Huffman's star Jacob Harvey to a 5-21 shooting night (12 pts total). In addition to McCurry's 12 points, the Eagles got double digit points from Luke Atwood and Eli Valentino, with Grey Goodson rounding out the scoring with 8.

For Huffman, shots that fell on their route to the Alamodome just wouldn't drop on a night where everything on offense had to be earned the hard way. Harvey had some electric plays to get the crowd into the game, but they weren't frequent enough to change the outcome of the game. Big men Grey Soileau and Luke Thomas battled fouls the entire game against Argyle's sizable front line, and ended with 7 and 5 points respectively.

Donovan Thompson's 21 points and game icing layup with 3 seconds left proved just enough to give Clarendon their first ever state basketball championship at their 4th time of asking, denying Grapeland at the final hurdle in a very topsy-turvy game. The final 4 minutes of the game saw both teams look like they clinched a win at different times, with Clarendon taking a 4 point lead, before back to back turnovers gave Grapeland a 59-57 advantage. But from there, a charging foul on BJ Lamb and a layup from Sylvester Ballard had things knotted up at 60 as we approached the end of regulation. Although Grapeland had the ball going into the game's final possession, a costly turnover led to a Lamarcus Penigar layup to put the Broncos up by 2.

A charge taken and Thompson's cherry on top layup later, and Clarendon finally reached the top of the mountain in class 2A, sending their fans into raptures.

Both teams were making their first state tournament appearance since 2017, when they were both defeated by state champions Muenster in that edition of the UIL Final Four.

Thompson's 21 points were complemented with 13 points from J'Maury Davis and 12 from Ballard, while Penigar had 8. Grapeland was led by the all around play of Lamb, who had 6 assists to go with his 19 points, while Keizion Ashford matched that total with 19 of his own and Cadarian Wiley put up 13 in the losing effort.

The game was odd in the fact that both teams had generally poor shooting games, with both teams shooting right around 50% from the free throw line, and the lone 3-pointer of the game came on a desperation heave by Thompson at the 3rd quarter buzzer. Regardless of the quirks of the title game, Clarendon will be elated that they've finally added that elusive state championship to their trophy cabinet. Also of note, 4 of their 5 starters will return next year, making them odds-on favorites to repeat next year.