12/30/2025
BY JACK BULLOCK
PINCKNEYVILLE - It's not supposed to be easy to win tournament championships and Tuesday night's title game victory by the Woodlawn Cardinals at the Duster Thomas Hoops Classic was anything but.

In what looked like might be a cake walk for Woodlawn turned out to be a nail-biter by the end.

The Cardinals led by 20-points during a big second quarter run and were up 32-15 at the half.

But the Sparta Bulldogs never quit and rallied to tie the game late in the fourth quarter.

Woodlawn's Wyatt Frick scored what proved to be the game-winner with :14 remaining and the Cardinals survived the Bulldogs' comeback, 48-46 to win the championship.

Sparta had late chances after a 3-pointer by Jakhai Dancy with 1:05 remaining tied the score at 46-46.

After the Frick basket, Sparta had a final opportunity after a pass was deflected out of bounds as time ran out.

The officials determined there was still :00.2 remaining.

An inbounds pass from DJ Hayes to Tyrell Charles resulted in a missed tip-in attempt at the buzzer as Woodlawn escaped with the title game victory.

“Our teams' poise has been great all year. We've had games where we got down and came back. We never showed emotion on our faces that they were worried. We just buckled down and did what we needed to do to win,” said Woodlawn head coach Luke Cooper.

Sparta's Dariontez Monroe led all scorers with 19 in the loss and Dancy added 11 for the Bulldogs, who saw their overall record slip to 11-2 overall for Coach Jordan Beckley.

“We got better ball movement in the second half and our defense led to offense,” said Coach Beckley. “We were just a step slow in the first half and we adjusted in the second half moving the ball more and our defense always leads to offense for us. I think we wore them out in the second half and that it where we normally make our run but we put ourselves into too big of a deficit.”

Three Cardinals, Frick, Kyle Cooper and Luke McKay each scored 12-points in the balanced attack for the 13-0 tournament champions.

Woodlawn broke free from Sparta in the second quarter by connecting on seven-consecutive field goal attempts and added a pair of free throws an another basket for a 20-0 run.

Cooper scored twice during that run and added the two free throws while McKay added three of the scores.

Kyle Moser scored six-points for Woodlawn and his basket from a Cooper assist made it 30-10 with 1:37 left in the half.

However Dancy nailed down a 3-pointer and then scored off of a Woodlawn turnover to close the gap to 32-15 at the break.

As good as it was for Woodlawn in the second quarter, Sparta put together the same type of run in the third.

Sparta forced Woodlawn into five third quarter turnovers while hitting its first four field goal attempts.

Monroe scored twice to open the 16-2 run before picking up his third personal foul with 3:46 left in the quarter.

Hayes finished the scoring run with a drive down the lane as the Woodlawn lead was just 34-31.

The Cardinals stopped the bleeding with a pair of baskets by Frick and Cooper before 3-pointer by Monroe sent the teams to the fourth quarter at 38-34.

“That was the Sparta team I expected (in the third quarter run). We did a good job in the first half, limiting their transition with our offense but they amped up the heat, which is what we expected,” said Coach Cooper. “They gave us some problems. They're really, really good. They got us out of our offense just a bit.”

Trailing 46-40 after McKay had scored inside, Sparta got consecutive 3-pointers by Monroe and Dancy to even the score.

The Frick basket came on a nice spin move in the lane 6-5 junior.

The Cardinals had fouls to give in the final seconds and got the clock down to :05.

Dancy's pass near the baseline was tipped out of bounds to set up the final tip-in attempt that was no good.

Woodlawn finished the hard fought victory by connecting on 21-of-44 from the floor but missed all eight of its three-point attempts.

Sparta was 17-of-36 while hitting 6-of-19 long-range shots.

Woodlawn ended up with a 19-18 edge on the glass with nine of them being on the offensive end.

The Cardinals finished up with nine turnovers, five of which came during the Sparta third quarter rally.

Nine of the 12 Sparta miscues came in the first half as they fell behind.

This showdown has the makings of a prelude to a potential postseason matchup, depending on the seedings of the 1A sectional that will be held at Trico this year.

“They had a big third quarter, we weathered it. Our guys did a good job never panicking,” said Coach Cooper. “This (championship) is a testiment to what we've done and what we can do.”