Caleb Fay punched home one exclamation point.
Then another.
Fitting for a newly minted two-time state champion.
The Kent Denver senior powered his way to a game-high 32 points, punctuated by thunderous back-to-back dunks in the midst of a fourth-quarter putaway sprint, as the “Run Devils” pulled away one final time from University in a 95-81 state championship victory in Class 4A.
Kent head coach Todd Schayes waited 29 years for a state title that finally arrived a year ago. Now his team is back-to-back champs.
“This year, we were playing with house money,” Schayes said. “We knew we were going to play fast. We know we’re very talented. If it didn’t happen this year, if we had been 13-10, we would have just as much fun. I did not feel the same pressure that we talked about last year.”
A team that Schayes calls “fiercely competitive,” however, was not going to settle for such results. It took some time early in the season, but by the time the title game rolled around, Fay had plenty of help around him.
Sam Glynn poured in 24, Liam Ash 13 and Henry Czaja 12. Kentap starting quintet accounted for 88 of the team’s 95 points.
In the midst of a frenetic start and a powerful closing push, though, Fay took over.
He knocked down three 3-pointers in a 12-point first quarter as Kent raced out to a 28-24 lead.
Every time the Devils tried to pull away, though, University reeled them back in. The Bulldogs closed the first half on a 10-3 run to get within 44-48. They were back within four midway through the third quarter.
They were trying to keep within striking distance, trailing by 10 early in the fourth quarter, when Kent ripped off an 11-2 run — an Ash layup, a Glynn 3-pointer and six of Fay’s 18 second-half points.
His last four high school points came in emphatic fashion.
Fay jab-stepped from the left wing, drove right, rose up and threw down a two-handed dunk. Then he came away with the ball after a scramble for it, rose up and hammered home another.
Suddenly, Kent led 86-67 with 5 minutes to go, and a group that wasn’t sure what its ceiling was a few months back knew it had delivered another championship to the school.
“Once that happened, the energy was rolling, our confidence was at an all-time high and from there it was pretty much over,” Glynn said.
Fay scored 20 in last year’s state title game but was surrounded by four seniors in the starting lineup. This year, he and Kent faced a different kind of challenge.
“This group of guys, we questioned how far we could get this year, but everybody found their place,” Fay said. … “We were thinking (state title) at the beginning of the season, but definitely at the beginning of February is when it really came together. Our offense was flowing and defensively, we didn’t even really have to talk because we knew.”
Added Ash, “(Fay) definitely had a lot of questions about this group, but he really just brought us all together, and we just followed suit.”
Schayes said the Air Force Academy-bound Fay is worthy of being the Gatorade player of the year after he surpassed 2,200 career points and led a second straight state title team.
His teammates marvel not just at the ability, but at the rest, too.
“His competitiveness and his desire to win — just how much he cares about how he was, and then on top of that itap his leadership, just his overall leadership as a person, and his overall communication skills as a human being,” Glynn said. “Those things coupled together is something I’ve never seen before.”
University blasted out to a 13-6 lead early Saturday on a pair of River Sawyer 3-pointers. He and John Elbe scored 26 apiece for the runners up.
The teams barely missed early on, playing at such a pace that Kent had mini pickle juice canisters on the bench to help prevent cramping.
This is how they like to play. Breakneck pace, up and down, with no concern about whether or not shots are falling.
“The confidence comes from practice,” Glynn said. “Every practice we’re getting up 100s of shots and the reps count every time. I’m going to keep shooting when I’m open and sometimes even when I’m not because I believe in myself and I believe in my team.”
Last year, Schayes felt the weight of a 29-year drought. After all, his teams had lost four times in state title games.
Overall, this year he said his team was playing with “house money,” though he did acknowledge he had a moment Saturday morning, pregame, when the thought of a fifth title-game defeat crossed his mind.
Except Schayes had Fay and a supporting cast too talented to let that anxiety become reality.
When Fay was a freshman, he started stopping by Schayes’ house on Sunday mornings to get a key to the Kent gym so he could get shots up with nobody else around.
His explanation for starting such a routine was simple.
“My jump shot was really broke,” he said with a smile on Saturday.
No longer.
“He’s leaving a lasting impression in our community, in our basketball program and in our school,” Schayes said.
