RAPID CITY — For the first time in 25 years, the Trojans are state champions.

No. 2 West Central capped off an undefeated season with a state championship on Saturday, knocking off the defending champs Sioux Falls Christian, 66-56, inside the Summit Arena at The Monument.

“It’s unreal, it means everything,” said senior center Will Kuhl. “It’s everything we worked for and it means just as much to all of my guys. They worked just as hard as me.”

Saturday’s title game featured a rematch of the top-2 ranked teams in the Class A High School Prep Media Poll all season long.

West Central defeated its Dak-XII foe earlier this year on Jan. 6 in a 64-55 decision on the road, but it’s tough to beat a good team twice, especially with a title on the line.

But the Trojans didn’t back down from the pressure, dominated for most of the game and secured a championship.

“It took heart,” Kuhl said. “It took heart and everyone in the locker room knew that it took heart, and they definitely went out there and poured their hearts out on the floor.”

Holding a 24-22 halftime lead, the Trojans built momentum with its suffocating defense with consistent offense in crunch time.

Brant Wassenaar tied the game at 26 early in the third quarter before Kuhl and Hayden Heier strung a 6-0 run midway through the quarter. Sophomore center Ryan Dieleman hit a 3-pointer to cut the lead back to four in the closing moments, but Heier answered the call with a long ball at the third quarter buzzer.

Dieleman was the Chargers leading scorer in the championship with 16 points and six rebounds, connecting on all four attempts from beyond the arc.

“Ryan had a great game,” WC head coach Dave Hollenbeck said of Dieleman. “Ryan’s a good kid. You cheer for a kid like that, in a game like this. He had his best game of the year, in the state tournament.”

A Connor Mebius bucket with two free throws extended the West Central lead to 49-41 with just over five minutes to play, but SFC’s Cooper Strande and Canyon Prins slashed the lead to just two after three-straight buckets.

But the Trojans never wavered, answering with a 10-2 run over the next three minutes to put away the repeat-hungry Chargers.

“It feels awesome,” Mebius said of the win.”I get to lead the team, it’s super great, and I’ve got a lot of great teammates around me who are weapons. It just means a lot.

“Just the intensity. It came down to who wanted it more and we went and got it.”

Mebius ended with a game-high 20 points, three rebounds and two assists, hitting 6-of-7 shots from the floor and 8-of-9 shots from the charity stripe.

Hollenbeck credits Mebius for being so efficient against his matchup Strande throughout the contest.

“He did a great job against him coming off of that screen,” Hollenbeck said of Mebius, “We just needed a little separation with him and then he can get to the rim. But credit Strande, he got him a couple times. We turned it over, they got 4-5 points out of that deal that closed the gap. But Connor came back, fought back and then he got to the rim, got to the foul line and was able to finish it.”

While the shooting splits were even between the two teams, the story of the game was the Trojans holding SFC standout junior Brant Wassenaar to just nine points on 4-of-10 shooting, 0-for-2 from 3-point range and seven turnovers.

“He gets downhill really well and he can shoot the ball too,” Mebius said of Wassenaar. “He’s such a great threat. We’ve got to D him up and play really good defense because he’s a really great player. The defense won us this championship.”

The Class A championship started with back-and-forth basketball, ending in a 15-10 advantage for the Trojans after a 6-0 run to end the opening quarter.

SFC’s Dieleman cut the lead to just one after a 3-pointer midway through the second quarter before Kuhl, Mebius and Carter Gross increased the Trojan lead back to seven points. A Carson Nickles 3-pointer and Prins bucket got it back to just one possession at halftime before the Trojans outscored the defending champions 42-34 in the second half to pull away with the win.

Prins finished with 13 points and three rebounds, Nickels added 12 points while Strande netted six points, three rebounds, three assists and three steals.

The Chargers finished with a record of 22-2, with both losses coming at the hands of WC.

For the Trojans, Kuhl ended with 15 points and four rebounds in his final high school basketball game, Heier had 13 points on 3-of-5 shooting from 3-point range while Knight tallied nine points, four rebounds and four assists in the win.

The Trojans, after an undefeated season, will bring home a championship to the West Central community for the first time in 25 years.

“I’m real excited for the whole community,” Hollenbeck added. “When we started this, we said let’s do something not as a team, but for the whole community.”

“It means everything,” Mebius said. “We get to bring home not only a championship, but went undefeated the whole season. It’s something really great for the community and it’s really awesome for this program.”