Cubs had a Dom-inating effort

Dominitrix Johnson passed midcourt, eyed the basket, made a quick move by his defender and laid the ball while being fouled.

With that, Bell City's standout point guard, set the tempo for the Class 1 boys basketball state championship game on the Cubs' first offensive possession. He simply kept scoring, pouring in 40 points as the Cubs won their second Class 1 state title in three years by beating St. Elizabeth 74-62 in Columbia.

After averaging a quiet 24.7 points per game throughout the playoffs, Johnson was a man possessed Saturday night. He came out on fire, scoring Bell City's first five points. After some of his teammates got involved, Johnson scored 11 of Bell City's final 13 points to finish the first quarter with 16.

"I put it in my mind at the beginning of the game I was going to score every shot I get," Johnson said.

Johnson continued his torrid pace in the second period by scoring Bell City's first seven points of the quarter. After that Johnson went cold from the field, allowing St. Elizabeth to get back into the game. St. Elizabeth outscored Bell City 15-9 and closed within 42-40 at halftime.

"I wasn't worried," Johnson said of his second-quarter slump. "If I missed them at first, I was just going to keep shooting."

Johnson was back on track in the second half, scoring Bell City's last six points of the third quarter, as the Cubs open a 55-50 lead. In the fourth quarter Johnson added another nine points as Bell City went ahead by as many as 15 points late in the game.

"We were hoping we could pull just one more out," St. Elizabeth coach T.J. Loethen said. "We hit a couple of shots, but Dominitrix just kept answering."

Johnson's 40 points gave him the fourth-highest point total in a state championship game. The 40 points also put him in a tie for the 11th-best single-game point total in MSHSAA Show-Me Showdown history.

"He's a stud," Loethen said. "He took over the game. That's what good players do."

Johnson finished with 114 points in the four-game run through the state playoffs, falling just short of the top 20 all-time.

Bell City coach David Heeb, who has coached Johnson for most of his life, said he knew Johnson was going to take them home after a pregame talk.

"We had a little heart to heart before the game," he said. "He told me when he was going out there, 'This one's for you.'"