By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Topeka West junior basketball standout Elijah Brooks was convinced the Chargers could have won Friday night's Class 5A state semifinal game against De Soto even if he hadn't been able to play.
Fortunately, West didn't have to cross that bridge, with the 6-foot-3 Brooks bouncing back from a knee inury in the fourth quarter of the Hays quarterfinal victory to not only play, but star as the 21-2 Chargers punched their ticket to Saturday's 6 p.m. championship game against 22-2 Maize with a 61-57 win over the Wildcats.
"I was happy I got to play, but at the same time I knew my guys could pull out the W even if I wasn't able to play,'' Brooks said. "They were going to play their heart out regardless if I played or not.
"The support that we have for each other, we know that we're going to keep fighting regardless of what happens.''
Elijah Brooks drives to the basket for 2 of his game-high 24 points in Friday night's 61-57 Topeka West 5A semifinal win over De Soto. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
Brooks status for the De Soto game was in doubt after he left the Hays game early in the final quarter and did not return.
But after putting in some extra work with Topeka West athletic trainer Megan Tetuan in between games, Brooks was in the starting lineup Friday night, scored the first basket of the game and never looked back.
The only noticeable difference was the knee brace that Brooks wore to protect his left knee.,
"I wasn't really thinking about it and the brace made me play with no worries, basically,'' Brooks said. "I was just playing my regular game.''
Brooks had 13 points and 7 rebounds by halftime as the Chargers recovered from an 11-point deficit and finished with game-high totals of 24 points and 13 rebounds before fouling out with 48.5 seconds remaining as West earned its first trip to the state finals since 2010.
"Elijah is a winner and he doesn't care what it takes,'' Topeka West coach Rick Bloomquist said. "He has no bells and whistles. It's not about style with Elijah. The only thing stylish about him was his knee brace. He had a pretty damn good-looking knee brace on, but he's not about style, he's about winning.''
Now the Chargers will turn their attention on trying to win the first boys state basketball championship in school history against a top-seeded Maize team that rolled to a 74-48 semifinal win over Kansas City-Washington.
"We just want to play our game, not let anybody take us out of our element and stay strong,'' Brooks said.
