By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Topeka West's boys basketball team is coming off the program's biggest win in more than a decade.
Now the goal for the Chargers is to finish off their amazing 2020-21 ride with the school's first boys state title.
Topeka West coach Rick Bloomquist (left) talks with Hays coach Alex Hutchins after West's 52-49 Class 5A quarterfinal win Tuesday night. [Submitted]
"The whole thing right now is to do what we did to get here, but work a little harder today in practice,'' West coach Rick Bloomquist said before Thursday's practice. "We want to stay focused, keep our nose down, don't get our heads inflated. It's not a party, it's still a basketball game and we just have to control our emotions right now.
"Like I've been telling them all year, their biggest weakness was their emotional IQ. Now our IQ's getting tested, so that's big key for us right now.''
Topeka West, now 20-1, passed that test in Tuesday night's Class 5A quarterfinal at Hays, ending the Indians' 30-game winning streak with a 52-49 win to advance to Friday's 7 p.m. state semifinal at Emporia's White Auditorium to face De Soto (19-3).
"We played well,'' Bloomquist said of the Hays game. "We played a complete game per se. There's no such thing as a perfect basketball game, but we played as close to complete as I think a high school team can play.''
West senior Trevion Alexander tied for team-high scoring honors with 16 points in the Chargers' 5A quarterfinal win at Hays. [File photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
Seniors Marque Wilkerson and Trevion Alexander both scored 16 points for the Chargers in the win over Hays while junior Elijah Brooks added 14. West also got a huge 3-pointer from sophomore Xavier Alexander late in the game to put the Chargers ahead to stay.
Brooks suffered a knee injury early in the fourth quarter and did not return, but Bloomquist expressed optimism Thursday that Brooks would be able to play Friday.
Overall, Bloomquist likes where his team is entering the semifinal.
"I've been confident in this team all year,'' said Bloomquist, whose second-seeded Chargers take a 14-game winning streak into Friday's game. "I'm been mad at them, especially when we went through that little losing funk (back-to-back losses to Highland Park and Shawnee Mission North) in the middle of the year, and I've been upset with them because of the fact that I didn't think they had the confidence that they should have.
"I think if we had a little bit more self belief in close games then we might be sitting here without a loss, but right now we're where we're at because we believe in each other, they believe in their teammates, they believe in their coaches and they believe in what we've done to get here.''
Topeka West has had to deal with the emotional news that Bloomquist was recently diagnosed with cancer, but Bloomquist is happy with how the team has handled that situation.
"I want them to approach it like I'm approaching it,'' he said. "We've got one day at a time and we'll do the best we can every day. I didn't want it to be any distraction and it hasn't been.''
The Chargers will be facing a De Soto team that has won six games in a row, including Tuesday's 67-42 quarterfinal win over Pittsburg.
Bloomquist and West will get their first up-close look at a 7-footer -- Wildcat senior standout Nate Barnhart, who is headed to Wyoming.
"I've seen (7-footers) on TV, they don't look that big,'' Bloomquist joked. "The kid at De Soto is a good player and I've heard a lot of good things about him. That's going to be a challenge in itself to see how we're going to approach him and and how he approaches us.''
The winner of Friday's game will advance to Saturday's 6 p.m. championship game to face the winner of Friday's 3 p.m. semifinal between top seed Maize (21-2) and No. 4 Kansas City-Washington (10-4).
This is West's first trip to state since Matt Hundley took the Chargers to the 5A championship game in 2010. West also advanced to the title game in '05 under Chad Eshbaugh, with the Chargers finishing second both times.
