Picture courtesy of Tanner Colvin
WICHITA — It wasn’t the ending he and his Salina South teammates had hoped for, but Jaxon Myers ended his Cougar basketball career with no regrets.
“I loved every bit of it, even the ups and downs,” Myers said after time ran out on their season a game short of the Class 5A state tournament with a 61-33 sub-state championship loss to two-time defending state champion Kapaun-Mt. Carmel at the Kapaun gym. “We won as a team and lost as a team, and it was just one of those things.”
The lopsided loss was a disappointing finish to an otherwise special season for the Cougars, who finished with a 16-9 record, their highest win total since 2020-21.
It also was the final game for the six-member senior class as well as for Jason Hooper, who told his players afterward that this was his final game as the boys head coach after 13 seasons.
“To have this season that we had with 16 wins, those seasons are special when you get in the upper teens,” Hooper said. “I’m proud of these guys for the way they fought and clawed all season long.”
“We won some huge games and were in some nailbiters against some other really good team that we didn’t end up coming up with. But I love the character that they showed all year long, and I’m proud to be their coach.”
Unfortunately for the Cougars, after knocking off Salina Central in Tuesday’s sub-state opener, they ran into a buzzsaw in Kapaun, which improved to 25-0 and will now go after a third straight state title.
The Crusaders used a stifling defense in leading wire-to-wire limiting South to one basket and a pair of free throws in a 19-4 first quarter. The Cougars trailed 37-11 at halftime, shooting 25%, missing all nine 3-point attempts and turning the ball over 10 times before intermission.
“They’re pretty good,” Myers said. “We knew it was going to be tough coming in, but in person it was even tougher.”
“They pressured us a lot and they kind of sped us up. They were all over us tonight.”
Hooper also knew that unseating the defending champions was a tall order.
“They’re just big, and they shoot it well and they’re downhill (to the basket),” he said. “They just overwhelmed us a little bit, especially in the first half. We were just really sped up and had some good looks, but I’ve never seen us shoot the ball so poorly.
“We weren’t even hitting the rim a few times, and so you’ve got to give Kapaun a ton of credit. They’re back-to-back state champions and the heavy favorite to get a third. We would have loved to have given them a batter game, but it wasn’t in the cards.”
South shot just 35.1% for the game, including 2-for-15 from 3-point range, and had 20 turnovers. Kapaun, meanwhile, shot 51% and made 7 of 14 3-pointers.
For South, seniors Myers and Easton Wilcox led the way with six points each, while Kobie Henley and Gavin DeVoe both finished with five. Rocko Keller had 14 points, with Blaise Dalian and Braylon Jones adding 11 for Kapaun.
Myers, who will play football next year at Garden City Community College, said he will take plenty of positive memories with him from the season.
“All the good times we had, even the wins and losses,” he said. “We always laugh at the end of the game and always had a good time just talking about the game and what happened during the game.”
“I’ll just miss those types of talks.”
