Two Wichita girls basketball powers collide, as Heights outlasts Derby for title
The showdown felt inevitable all week in Topeka, a championship collision between two of Class 6A’s best girls basketball teams and two of Wichita’s toughest.
When Wichita Heights and Derby finally met with a trophy on the line in the final of the Capital City Classic, they delivered a back-and-forth thriller that wasn’t decided until the final shot with Heights escaping with a 66-63 victory to remain undefeated.
The Falcons improved to 15-0 and strengthened their grip on the top of the Class 6A West sub-state standings, while Derby (13-3) had its nine-game winning streak snapped.
“We looked at this game as four eight-minute games, and we wanted to win three of them,” Heights coach Jen Pillich said. “We wanted to play Heights basketball, where no one is the hero but everyone collectively will be the heroes when we win three out of four.”
It was Derby who landed the first blow. The Panthers sprinted to a 12-4 lead in the opening three minutes, capped by a Sarai Graham assist to Alex Dinsmore for a fast-break layup that forced an early Heights timeout and set an aggressive tone.
But the opening burst came with complications. Derby’s 6-foot-2 senior star Macayla Askew was saddled with foul trouble early and often, limiting her ability to dominate inside. As Askew sat, Heights gradually took control of the game’s tempo and defensive tone.
Derby went nearly seven minutes without a field goal in the second quarter and Heights capitalized with a decisive 14-2 run to take a narrow 31-30 advantage into halftime.
Derby regrouped coming out of the locker room and found its rhythm again in the third quarter. But each run was met with a counter.
For Heights, it was Aniyah Harris who repeatedly answered. The senior guard buried a pair of deep 3s when Derby threatened to swing momentum. Graham responded with a deep 3 of her own to tie the game at 47 late in the third quarter, setting up a tense finish.
When Jocelyn Rose scored on the block to put Heights ahead 53-47 early in the fourth, Askew announced her presence in emphatic fashion. The Derby senior rattled off six straight points to tie the game at 53-all with 4:25 remaining, signaling what would become a one-player takeover attempt.
But Rose continued to be a steady interior force for Heights, finishing with a career-high 18 points.
“Every time she was down there, she found her sweet spot and showed off her beautiful footwork,” Pillich said of Rose’s breakout performance. “Her confidence is just out of this world. Her teammates did a great job of getting her the ball. We’ve got those quick guards who are fun to watch, but Jocelyn was feeling it.”
The final four minutes turned into a duel.
The defining moment came with Heights clinging to a two-point lead and just over a minute to play. Maze had the ball near the top of the key, drove left, then spun sharply back to her right to lose her defender. As she absorbed contact near the rim, she lofted a high-arcing scoop shot that sailed higher than the backboard before splashing through the net for a stunning and-one.
Maze calmly knocked down the free throw, pushing the lead to 62-57 with 1:27 left.
“I like to preach that we want high-percentage shots, but I think any shot she takes is a high-percentage shot,” Pillich said of Maze. “Being a former player, when that ball feels good and you want to let it go, have at it. With her, the light is any shade of green she wants it to be. When it came time to cash those shots in, she was ready.”
Derby refused to fade. Askew delivered her own three-point play to cut the margin to 62-60. On the next possession, Maze drove again, missed her initial attempt, grabbed her own rebound and flipped it back in to make it 64-60 with 37 seconds left. Askew answered yet again with an offensive rebound putback to trim it to 64-62.
Free throws left the door cracked open. Heights split a pair. Derby split a pair. Heights again split from the line with 6.8 seconds left, setting up one final chance for the Panthers.
Derby used star softball player Karlie Demel, who was also named to the all-tournament team, to throw deep and find Askew well past halfcourt. She took a dribble to get closer to the 3-point line and launched a potential game-tying shot. The look was clean. The release was confident. But the shot was just a touch long.
“She was ready to win a championship,” Derby coach Bryan Chadwick said of Askew, who finished with a game-high 23 points, including 15 of Derby’s 16 points in the fourth quarter. “She is just one special player.”
Derby also received 15 points from sophomore Siaunna Carter, but it was Askew who carried the Panthers late and reached a milestone in the process, surpassing 1,000 career points and 500 career rebounds in just her 66th career game.
“It definitely felt like a championship game between two of the best teams in the state,” Chadwick said. “We got exactly what we wanted there at the end. We had the ball in our best player’s hands trying to tie it. It didn’t work out this time, but we’ll get back to work and try to make sure we see them again later.”
Harris and Rose led Heights with 18 points apiece, while Maze finished with 12. Pillich also praised senior Jessiah Dingle, who scored just two points but created havoc defensively, including drawing three charges that helped swing key moments.
For Heights, Saturday’s championship was just another chapter in a season that began without the Falcons ranked in the top 10. They’re now 15-0 and ranked No. 2 in the state, as Pillich’s self-described “misfits” continue to embrace the underdog label while stacking quality performances.
“We like to use TMC: ‘The marathon continues,’” Pillich said. “Right now we’re on mile marker 15. We can celebrate this, but we’re trying to get to that mile marker 25. We’re taking it one game at a time because we know this is a marathon.”
This story was originally published February 1, 2026 at 7:02 AM.
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