Shawnee Heights coach Steve Wallace may have delivered one of the best pregame speeches of his career Saturday night at Landon Arena, but he’s pretty sure his T-Birds didn’t hear much, if any of it.

But no pregame inspiration was needed, with the senior-dominated Heights team doing everything it needed to do in every facet of the game to deliver the school’s first Class 5A state championship in 15 years.

Shooting 51 percent from the floor, 85 percent from the free-throw line and getting key contributions from a host of players, Shawnee Heights took the lead for good on a Tyler White 3-pointer (one of nine in the game) with 1:17 left in the first quarter and never looked back, rolling to a 66-49 win over Kansas City-Schlagle.

“They were ready to roll,” Wallace said after the T-Birds capped a 22-3 season. “The pregame speech probably sounded like Charlie Brown. I pretty much just gave them the same spiel they get all the time.

“I just told them that we just needed to go out and play like we know how to play. We know how to win games.”

Shawnee Heights trailed 7-2 and 11-5 early, but rallied for a 14-11 lead at the end of the first quarter and the T-Birds kept pulling away the rest of the game.

The T-Birds went into halftime with a commanding 32-19 advantage and built their lead to 17 early in the third quarter before taking a 47-34 advantage into the fourth quarter.

Shawnee Heights went in front by 21 (62-41) with 2:06 remaining and it was celebration time for the T-Birds.

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