When Republic’s seniors finished 4th in the state as freshmen in 2010, they promised themselves they’d be back at the final four this year. Jake Fletcher made sure it wasn’t just a token appearance.
In his final game in a Tigers uniform, Fletcher hit four of six three-point attempts, including a running 28-footer as time expired in the 1st quarter, helping Republic beat Normandy 54-51 in the Class 4 state championship game. Fletcher also helped anchor the Republic backcourt against Normandy’s relentless defense.
After turning the ball over 12 times in the 1st half, Republic committed only two turnovers after the break. The Tigers withstood a Normandy run and hit free throws down the stretch to seal the school’s first state title since 1963.
Junior Cody Geiger came up big for the Tigers as well. He was 7-of-11 from the floor, for a game-high 20 points. Geiger also pulled down ten rebounds, and was 6-for-6 from the free throw line.
“That’s the way we’ve been all year,” says coach Trevyor Fisher. “We don’t have that one guy that’s scoring 20 points a game. We don’t rely on one part of our game to carry us through. From game to game, you never know if it’s going to be our inside guys, our guards. We just had all the right pieces and more importantly, some good team chemistry to go along with that.”
The first 12 minutes of the game belonged to Republic. Republic led 15-10 after one period, and the lead was double digits midway through the 2nd quarter, as the Tiger defense frustrated Normandy’s run-and-gun attack.
But Normandy forced several Republic turnovers and sped up the pace of the game as they fought back to take a one-point lead into halftime, 26-25.
Coming out of the halftime break, it looked like Normandy might run away with it. Republic went cold from the field, and stopped crashing the boards, as the Vikings built a seven-point lead at 38-31. The Normandy lead was 42-36 heading into the 4th quarter.
“Coach Fisher always does a great job of keeping us calm,” Fletcher says of the team’s mood after Normandy took the lead. “We knew they would make a run obviously with their press… so we wanted to stay calm under pressure and we got a couple of turnovers there toward the end of the 2nd quarter. When they made their run, we just had to stay calm. We had to come back, meet our passes…and play as well as we could.
After withstanding that run, for the third playoff game in a row, the Tigers came up big down the stretch. Republic scored the first ten points of the 4th quarter to grab a 46-42 lead with 3:59 left.
Normandy retook the lead at 49-48, but two free throws by Dylan Bekemeier with 1:30 left gave the Tigers the lead for good. Fletcher hit one of two free throws on the next possession to extend the lead to 51-49 with 1:01 remaining. After another defensive stop, Cody Geiger hit two more free throws to make the lead 53-49.
Terry White scored on a layup to cut the lead to two, and Dylan Bekemeier made one of two free throws to give Normandy a final chance. But Republic made sure to defend the 3-point attempt on the final possession, and a long shot by Gerard Fuller was short. When the shot bounced out of bounds as time expired, the Tigers rushed to half court to celebrate their victory.
In addition to Geiger and Fletcher, the Tigers got seven points apiece from Bekemeier and Grant Hancock, and five points from Canyon Smith. The Tigers out rebounded Normandy 27-19.
The Vikings were led by Fuller, who had 14 points. Kevin McLemore added 12, and Terry White scored 12.
Republic’s state championship comes exactly 50 years after the Tigers won their only previous title in 1963. And it serves as a one-year follow-up to the 2012 championship won by the Lady Tigers.
“It was just a little taste, when the girls brought it back,” says Fletcher. “It was something to look forward to, and that’s maybe how we wanted to go out. We fulfilled everything that we wanted to.”
