Hornets' Dominant Defense Leads to State Title

Originally Published: Mar 13, 2010 9:43 PM CDT

Corey DeMoss
Oklahoma Sports Staff Writer

TULSA, Oklahoma – Booker T. Washington avenged three losses and earned the 14th state title in school history with a 42-30 victory over Memorial Saturday in the Class 5A finals.

The Hornets lost to Memorial twice in the regular season and once in the playoffs this year, but Booker T. head coach Shea Seals said that just gave his team more experience coming into the championship game.

“We knew their strong suit; we’ve seen them so many times, we knew what they were good at,” Seals said. “We capitalized on some of their weaknesses, and it really helped us out tonight.”

BTW stepped up on the defensive end and shut down both Cameron Downing and Adrian Anderson. Anderson finished the game scoreless, while Downing scored eight points after amassing 50 in the Chargers’ previous two games combined.

“It was mainly just covering Anderson. Don’t give him open looks because he can really shoot the ball,” Seals said. “And with Downing, we had other guys that were really helping inside on him. It was a team effort. Defensively, those guys just sold out and came together and made a commitment when they stepped on the floor that they were going to defend.”

The win gives Booker T. its first Gold Ball in basketball since 2002.