Okay, so the Webb City Cardinals are real, real good.
But the St. James Lady Tigers ain’t bad, either.
Lady Tiger head coach Brad Conway says his squad must remember both of those facts.
The St. James High School girls’ basketball team will take on an opponent considered one of the nation’s best Saturday, when the Lady Tigers meet Webb City for a second straight year in Missouri Class 4 Quarterfinal action.
St. James faces Webb City at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Hammons Student Center on the campus of Missouri State University in Springfield.
In the boys’ quarterfinal game Saturday at Springfield, Bolivar (18-6) meets Republic (19-8) at 2:45 p.m.
The winner of the St. James-Webb City game will move on to the Class 4 State Tournament Final Four. The winner of Saturday’s girls’ game in Springfield will meet the O’Hara (22-6)-Staley (19-7) winner at 5 p.m. Friday, March 12 in semifinal action at the Mizzou Arena in Columbia. The Class 4 championship game is set for March 13.
St. James, 25-3 and ranked No. 3 in the latest Missouri Class 4 state poll, barely got to Springfield, needing a last-second, 18-foot jumper by 5-8 senior guard Jordan Bowen to clip West Plains 41-40 on Wednesday in sectional action at Lebanon.
The Webb City Cardinals belted Republic 60-34 in sectional play.
Webb City hammered St. James 60-39 in the 2009 quarterfinals at the Hammons Center and went on to advance to the Class 4 Championship Game before falling to Platte County 81-75.
From that squad Cardinal head coach Brad Shorter returns four starters and has added a valuable transfer player. The result has been a 27-1 record, the top ranking in Class 4 as well as a national ranking. Webb City is one of only two Missouri schools ranked in the ESPN Fab 50 Rankings.
Incarnate Word Academy of Missouri is ranked No. 10 in the ESPN national poll while Webb City is ranked No. 26.
“It’ll be a big challenge for us,” Conway said. “Last year we got some good looks against them; we just didn’t knock them down. We can’t dig ourselves in a hole against a team like this. We’ve got to match their intensity.
“Webb City has blue-collar players who understand their role. They just play hard.”
The Big Three for Webb City has been 6-1 junior Kaitlin Jaeger, 5-9 junior Hailey Roderique and 5-8 junior Kyndal Clark. Jaeger and Roderique were standouts off last year’s squad; Clark transferred in from Branson.
All-stater Jaeger is averaging 18.5 points and seven rebounds while Roderique averages 15 points and Clark 13 points.
Sharenda Campbell and Brenna Baker, a pair of 5-6 juniors, are also returning starters. And with an all-junior starting lineup, Webb City is likely to be back again a year from now as well.
Also in the Cardinal rotation are 5-6 senior Summer Greek, 5-7 juniors Jordyn Williams and Samantha Stroud and 5-11 sophomore Lexie Gardner.
“I feel like we’ve made some progress from last year,” said Shorter, in his second season as Cardinal head coach. “But we still have a lot of improving to do. We still have a lot of the same philosophies from last year with a couple of new faces. Early on the chemistry was a bit of an issue. Now we’re going extremely well.”
“Offensively they have a lot of motion and really try to post up the Jaeger girl,” Conway said. “And the girls new to the program shoot the three well. Defensively they do a lot of the same things; they show you man (to man) and a little zone. They’ve had four or five kids playing varsity since they were freshmen. Now they’re juniors and have gotten better with the addition of the Clark girl.”
Webb City has been as far as the quarterfinals three times in the program’s history -- all the past three years. The Lady Tigers will be gunning for their fifth state Final Four berth, and fourth under Conway. The last time the Lady Tigers have played in the semifinals at Columbia was the 2004-05 campaign.
“I feel they’ll bring 100 percent,” Shorter said of St. James. “They do an exceptional job of accepting their roles. Their scoring is distributed very well and Rachel Connell is one of the better players we’ll see all year long. We’re going to have to play a great game to win it.”
Connell, a 5-11 junior all-state guard, averages 15 points, six rebounds, 3.5 assists and 3.5 steals.
Also for St. James 5-9 sophomore post Brittany Harris-Conway averages 9.8 points, 4.5 rebounds and is shooting 47 percent from the field; 5-9 junior post Kayla Walters averages 7.6 points, 5.9 rebounds and 2.1 steals and shooting 48 percent from the field, and Bowen averages 6.7 points and 3.3 rebounds.
Here is a list of the four St. James teams that have advanced to the state tournament semifinals:
1994-95: Class 3 (finished 4th)
2001-02: Class 3 (finished 4th)
2003-04: Class 4 (finished 3rd)
2004-05: Class 4 (finished 3rd)
