Four years ago St. James High School boys’ basketball head coach Ben Smith had an athletic group of freshmen enter the program who he proclaimed had the ability to make a special mark on the Tiger program.

Fast-forward to Saturday, March 7, 2026 and those players - now seniors - proved their coach prophetic.

The top-seeded Tigers put together perhaps their most dominating defensive effort of the season Saturday and went on to smother third-seeded Four Rivers Conference rival St. Clair 48-22 in the championship game of the Missouri Class 4 District 3 Tournament at Cuba High School.

After receiving a first-round bye St. James blasted another league foe, fourth-seeded Owensville, 56-29 Thursday, March 5 in the district semifinals.

St. James (21-7) was to meet District 4 champion Clayton (21-7) in sectional playoff action Tuesday, March 10 at Rockwood Summit High School in Fenton. The Clayton Greyhounds defeated St. Francis Borgia 71-59 in the District 4 title game March 7.

The St. James/Clayton winner will move on to Class 4 Quarterfinal action against either District 1 champion Dexter (19-9) or District 2 champion Potosi (21-5) at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 14 at Union High School. The survivor of that quarterfinal game advances to the Boys’ Class 4 Final Four, with the semifinal game set for 10 a.m. March 20 at the Mizzou Arena in Columbia. The state tourney third-place and championship games are slated for March 21.

It is the first STJ boys’ basketball district championship since the 2019 Tigers - led by all-stater Andrew Branson. St. James has been to the district championship game five times in the last nine seasons.

And with four seniors in the starting lineup, there was plenty of motivation to take the championship plaque home this time.

“I’m so proud of these seniors,” said Coach Smith, who has now won four district titles at his alma mater and attempting to claim his third state quarterfinal berth. “They just took on their role and they really wanted it. They have played a lot of basketball for me, and it’s nice to see them get their names on a banner as district champions.”

“It’s very special,” said senior guard Tate Gruver, who during the semifinals against Owensville set the Tiger career scoring record. “We have been together for four years. Winning district this year means a lot.”

“It feels amazing,” said senior guard Aiden Boone. “It’s been a great season with a great group of guys. And every single player played a role in this.”

“This game was a taste of revenge, too,” said Tiger senior forward JV Meurer, noting that it was St. Clair that ended St. James’ 10-game win streak Feb. 20.

“It’s surreal,” said senior guard Nick Gleason after Saturday’s win and the accompanying stream of photo-taking. “Since the beginning of the season our main goal was winning district. Now I think we can go to (the Final Four). I love playing with this group.”

Championship Game, March 7 - STJ 48, St. Clair 22: When the Tigers play well, it’s their defense that takes over. And that was never more the case than Saturday, as St. James’ pressing defense hounded the St. Clair Bulldogs into a slew of turnovers and forced, contested field goal attempts.

“Offense wins games, defense wins championships,” Boone said with a smile. “From last season to this season our defense has gotten a lot better. As a team, this was probably our best (defensive game).”

“After Christmas, all the games we won, we knew defense was the key,” Gruver said. “And (St. Clair) beat us on our Senior Night. We wanted to show we were the better team.”

“We knew locking them up defensively was the key,” Meurer said.

“We had a talk earlier, pretty much saying if we win we would need that defensive effort,” Gleason said.

Ben Smith said a film study around mid-season has made all the difference in the Tigers’ defensive performance.

“The turning point was when we got beat by Osage, then won our next game against Steelville but didn’t really play well,” Smith said. “We had a film session and weren’t crazy about what we were doing. And to the guys’ credit they came out of that film session and had the best practice we’ve had. And that’s been our calling card.”

And Saturday St. Clair was helpless against the motivated Tiger defensive scheme.
The Bulldogs would not crack double figures until less than two minutes remaining in the first half. By then the Tigers had built a 17-point cushion.

St. James opened by scoring 11 of the game’s first 13 points. And a driving layup by Boone at the 1:03 mark of the first quarter made it 11-2. St. Clair managed four more points the final :43 to cut its deficit to 14-6 entering the second period.

The Tigers went on a 12-3 run to open the rest of the half. And a fastbreak layup by Gleason with 2:48 left in the half gave STJ a 26-9 advantage. Junior guard Owen Spurgeon canned a driving layup with two seconds remaining to give the Tigers a 28-13 halftime edge.

The second half was much the same, as St. Clair was limited to just one field goal in the third period and two in the fourth quarter. The Tigers reeled off the first 14 points of the second half. Gleason grabbed an offensive rebound and scored on a put-back at the 2:22 mark of the third quarter to give STJ its largest lead of the game, 29 points.

Gleason fired in a game-high 19 points and six rebounds while Boone added 10 points; sophomore guard Isaac Smith four steals and five assists, and Meurer three steals for the Tigers. No one scored in double figures for the Bulldogs.

Smith broke the single-season school record for assists with 160, breaking the mark of 155 set by Jake Harlan in 2010-11. Smith is the only player in program history with more than 100 steals and 150 assists in the same season.

The individual scoring (FG-FT-TP):

St. James (21-7): Boone 4-1-10, Gruver 3-0-7, Gleason 9-0-19, Smith 1-0-3, O. Spurgeon 1-0-2, Meurer 1-0-2, J. Spurgeon 2-1-5, Totals 21-2-48.

St. Clair (18-11): Ingram 1-1-3, Conway 1-0-3, Dowell 0-1-1, Short 2-0-4, Roemer 2-2-6, Rulo 2-0-5, Totals 8-4-22.

The score by periods:

St. Clair     6    7  2 7-22

St. James 14 14 16 4-48

Semifinals, March 5 - STJ 56, Owensville 29: The Owensville Dutchmen had about as much success against the Tiger defense as did St. Clair. St. James scored the game’s first six points and never trailed. A tip-in at the buzzer by junior forward Jaxen Spurgeon gave STJ a 15-7 advantage entering the second period.

After Owensville sophomore Andrew Budnick hit a three-pointer to open the second-quarter scoring, the Dutchmen wouldn’t score again the rest of the half. The Tigers netted the final 16 points of the second quarter. And a layup by J. Spurgeon off a Gleason assist gave St. James a 31-10 halftime edge.
Owensville could not muster enough offense to rally. And a conventional three-point play by Meurer with seven seconds left gave St. James its largest third-quarter lead of 28 points.

The Tiger advantage would grow to as much as 30 points in the final period.

Gruver broke the Tiger career scoring record (statistics totaled since the mid-1970s) with a pair of free throws at the 6:28 mark of the fourth quarter. He passed Chad Shockley - now St. James’ Athletic Director - who finished his Tiger playing career with 1,307 points in 2006.

Also during the game Smith broke the STJ single-season steals record, set by Jake Ford during the 2012-13 campaign. Smith now has 108 steals.

Gleason paced a balanced attack with 13 points while Boone added 12 points and Smith 11 points.
The individual scoring:

St. James: Boone 6-0-12, Gruver 3-2-9, Gleason 5-3-13, Smith 4-2-11, O. Spurgeon 1-0-2, Meurer 1-1-3, J. Spurgeon 3-0-6, Totals 23-8-56.

Owensville (11-14): Womack 1-0-3, Watson 2-1-5, Glasser 2-5-10, Crosby 3-0-8, Weirich 1-0-3, Totals 9-6-29.

The score by periods:

Owensville    7  3 11 8-29

St. James    15 16 17 8-56

District 3 Results at Cuba H.S.

First Round, March 3 - No. 4 Owensville 52, No. 5 Sullivan 35; No. 3 St. Clair 61, No. 6 Cuba 47

Semifinals, March 5 - No. 1 St. James 56, Owensville 29; St. Clair 52, No. 2 Salem 49

Championship Game, March 7 - St. James 48, St. Clair 22