CHAMPAIGN — Yorkville Christian didn’t exist 10 years ago. Three years ago, it was a curiosity, the school no one had heard of where Jaden Schutt, the kid with one of the prettiest-looking jumpers anyone had ever seen, played.
Now the Mustangs are state champions.
Yorkville Christian began the season as the overwhelming favorite to win the title. Coach Aaron Sovern scheduled a gauntlet of challenging games. The Mustangs won some and lost some, but the highs were exceptional. Yorkville Christian beat Kenwood, a Class 4A power, last month.
It rolled through the state tournament, beating opponents by an average of 44 points. The Mustangs were somehow an even bigger favorite when the title game began than when the season began.
Liberty, a village of 489 residents near Quincy, rose to the occasion Saturday and gave Yorkville Christian a real challenge. In almost any other season, the Eagles would be state champions. There has never been a Duke recruit in Class 1A before, and it is unlikely to happen again.
Liberty led at halftime, but the Mustangs took control in the fourth quarter to win the title game 54-41.
Schutt, the Duke recruit, said he was in fourth grade when he heard there was a Christian school being built just minutes from his house.
“It’s been a process,” Schutt said. “From then to sitting here with a bunch of wonderful guys and being state champs. It’s been a lot of hard work. But there isn’t another group of guys I would rather have won a state championship with.”
Schutt didn’t have a monster game. He scored 12 points and was 1-for-6 from three-point range.
But the team that grew and improved around Schutt all season stepped up in the title game. Senior KJ Vasser had 15 points and Tyler Burrows added 13, and, most important, the Mustangs (25-13) outrebounded Liberty 32-27.
“It hasn’t hit me yet,” Vasser said. “I was doing a lot of yelling.”
Yorkville Christian was 2-for-10 from three-point range in the first quarter.
“Basketball is a game of runs, and we understood we came out slow,” Vasser said. “I shot an air ball. But we had to stay with it.”
Liberty led 25-23 with 3:24 left in the third quarter, and it didn’t seem like a fluke. But then Vasser’s three-point play with 3:07 left in the third ignited a 17-2 run that put the game out of reach.
“Mission accomplished,” Sovern said. “As we’ve said forever, this was our goal at the beginning of the year. I can’t say enough about these guys. They just found a way. It was definitely not easy, and they fought through.”
Cannen Wolf had 15 points for the Eagles (30-6), and Devin Clauser, a 6-6 senior, added 13 points and five rebounds.
“They are a nice team,” Sovern said. “Obviously, they are in the state championship game. They had some size, and it was a priority to try to negate some of their paint touches. They definitely earned their way here.”
