Coach Bryan Turner: “Just Not Enough”
St. Mary’s Coach Reflects on Its Near Championship Season
The old axiom ‘to be a champion, you have to beat a champion’ can often be misleading, or premature, if that conquest actually transpires before the ultimate championship. The letdown, or the consequent physical and mental recovery of that process, doesn’t always go according to form. Just ask St. Mary’s boys basketball coach Bryan Turner, whose club may have been the popular favorite to dethrone the Vashon Wolverines as Class 4 state champions last month especially after the Dragons throttled them 83-70 in the sectional championship. But St. Mary’s went on to get throttled by Sikeston 76-50 in the next round in the state quarterfinals to have an unceremonious end to its season at 27-4.
“It was sort of hard to get us to refocus and forget about sectionals because the turnaround for the next game (four days) was so soon,” said Turner, whose club had finally experience a dramatic postseason breakthrough after being eliminates by the Wolverine the past three seasons. “For my seniors, it was a bit of fulfillment tackling and accomplishing one of their goals that has haunted them for four years. But bitter sweet losing to a great Sikeston made things a bit difficult because we didn’t play our best.
In the waning moments before all of the Vashon’s players and coaches had cleared out of Parkway West High School, which was the site of the much anticipated Vashon-St. Mary’s game, former Vashon star and current assistant coach Jimmy McKinney congratulated Turner with a closing remark: “You finally got me.” That was in reference to the fact that when Turner was a star at the now defunct Beaumont his Bluejackets were never able to get past McKinney and the Wolverines, who captured three straight state titles from 2000-2002.
“Being a coach, an educator and a leader of young men I have to do a good job in educating them on history,” said Turner. “Legacy was a word that was used often to motivate these guys into doing something great. With all the trophies and banners around the school very few are of the basketball teams (at St. Mary’s). We wanted to change that. So we did things around the school and churches during the summer months. We ran miles up Grand to Carondelet Park “Rocky Style” to be more visible with their support added to the mystique of playing at home. I feel like we have the best student section around town with the Rowdy Gentlemen and it makes for fun times at school events.”
Junior point guard Yuri Collins, who averaged 13.6 points and nearly seven assists, the only returning starter from that potent Dragons squad, as fellow guard Antonio Burks (14.1 points per game) and remaining starters Yahuza Rasas, (12.6) Dominic Mitchell (10.4), Miles Jones (9.0) and even rotation player Donanvon Austin will all graduate.
Even though we didn’t win the state championship, these student athletes-athletes played like champions all year,” said Turner. “I’m proud to be apart of something special going on here on the South Side.” By Lonnel Cole of the St. Louis Argus