How Good Is This Basketball Rivalry?

(St. Louis, MO) – When people think of high school rivalries they think of the Kirkwood-Webster Groves football rivalry. The basketball version closing in on being just as special.

Friday night the two teams will meet for a District Championship title. The top two teams in the Suburban South Conference played a brilliant game at Webster in late January with the Statesmen wining it 63-61. This time it will be at Kirkwood and the Pioneers (20-7) are playing their best basketball at the right time of the season.

Webster Groves (23-4) won the previous game in what amounted to a ‘coming out party’ for Stephen Harris. The Junior scored 22 point and seemed to realize he could be one of the best players in the metro area that night. He hasn’t slowed down since. He scored 18 in Tuesday’s District semi-final against Mehlville.

Kirkwood Head Coach Bill Gunn has his Pioneers defending better than at any time in the season. Senior Evan Booker collected five blocked shots in the loss in January and is closing in on 100 blocks for the second season in a row. KHS has won six straight and 10 of their last 11.

When Kevin Paulus and I had the privilege of announcing that previous game on prepsportsshowcase.com, I looked at Kevin and said, “this is why we do what we do”.

The environment, the high level of play and the excellent coaching was all special. When talking to Coach Gunn last week, he said the same thing about coaching in that same game.

Friday’s game will be back on that same site.  The winner will most likely play top ranked CBC the following Wednesday for a Sectional title and we’ll be broadcasting that game too.

Do Good