Haven shocks 2 undefeated teams in 2 days to win emotional midseason championship
Senior guard Arie Roper woke up Saturday morning and received a text from an old friend.
It was Paige Chamberlain. She told her a championship at the Wildcats’ home tournament was what her dad wanted.
Chamberlain’s father, David, died unexpectedly 360 days ago Saturday. He was 51. Chamberlain was an assistant coach on the Haven girls basketball team. He was part of the staff that brought the school its most recent midseason tournament title. That was six years ago.
Paige was part of that team.
Saturday morning, Roper walked into the team’s breakfast room.
“I said, ‘We gotta do it,’ “ she said.
A few hours later, Roper joined her dad, coach Dwight Roper, on the sideline set to play their second undefeated team - two of the remaining 16 in Kansas - for the 2019 Wildcat Classic championship. They won, beating Cheney 54-40 in a game in which emotions clearly played a part.
“Two weeks ago, we played Halstead who was also undefeated, and we knew we wanted to take that title down,” Arie Roper said. “Coming into the tournament, we knew we had two really good, undefeated teams.
“We didn’t want to just win the classic. We wanted to take that down. I think that actually gave us more motivation for the game, wanting to set the tone for the rest of the season.”
The Haven girls were outstanding, drilling big shots at critical moments.
Late in the second quarter, already up eight, Maguire Estill caught a pass in the high post. She pivoted and found Faith Paramore for an open three-pointer to give Haven a 22-11 lead. Paramore held her pose.
Midway through the fourth, Paramore snared a rebound and drove 80 feet to the rim to make it a 12-point game. That felt like the point of no return. Paramore scored a game-high 24 points and was named to the All-Tournament team.
That was great, she said. It meant more than that.
“It’s an unbelievable feeling,” she said. “We wouldn’t be where we are today without him. That was super, super tough on all of us. With all the success we’ve had last year and this year, we’re just doing it all for him.”
Haven has had some wonderful teams since Chamberlain helped the Wildcats to their now-second most recent midseason tournament title.
Last year, they finished third in Class 3A and only lost by five to eventual champion Garden Plain. In 2016, they blitzed through a brutal sub-state tournament and reached the state tournament.
The Wildcat Classic, the scene they should thrive in, has been one of the biggest hurdles, Arie said. That made Saturday so special.
“I think the last three years, we haven’t made it past the first round,” she said. “I think I was in fifth grade when they won it last time. I got to back then and come down and hug my down, and I said to myself when I’m in high school, we’re going to get that again.”
2019 didn’t figure to be the year to snap the drought. The Wildcats entered as the No. 4 seed out of eight teams. They didn’t have their best player from a year ago, Emmily Hendrixson, who graduated. And they lost to a team they would have to play in the second round about six weeks earlier.
That team was Nickerson, and the Panthers were still undefeated. Didn’t matter. Paramore scored 32, and Nickerson’s top scorer, Morgan Stout, suffered a gruesome knee injury the day before and didn’t play.
Still exhausting, Haven had to double down less than 24 hours later against Cheney and came through again. With every timeout called, the girls jumped and yelled back to the sideline. They could feel it coming.
“I just told the girls today to go out and have fun,” Dwight Roper said. “Compete, compete on every possession. I couldn’t be happier with the way we dug down and got after it. Everybody is playing on three days. It’s the same for everybody, but it’s just a matter of you just got to play through it.”
With the win, Haven moves to 10-2 and proves it can hang with the best teams in its sub-state, Cheney being one of them.
Maybe most important, 360 days ago Saturday, the Haven program felt death. The win and the title gave them life this year.
“With that date coming up, it’s a constant remind of why we do what we do,” Arie Roper said. “Today feeling the energy in here, I felt like it was him, and that really helped us.”
This story was originally published January 27, 2019 at 3:51 AM.