Inductees

So how in the world did the Incarnate Word Academy Basketball Program rise from a little-known school to one of the most respected in Missouri and beyond?

For that answer, just ask one of its best players since 2000, Felcia Chester-Wootton. Years before she played in the WNBA – and before that, for DePaul University – Wootton saw the transformation.

“I remember my freshman year talking about goals at the beginning of the year. State wasn’t one of them,” Wootton said. “However, after we went to state, we wanted to win state. Anything less was sort of a failure.”

Success has defined the Red Knights throughout the 2000s, which is why the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame proudly inducted the Incarnate Word Academy Basketball Program with the Class of 2018.

IWA has won nine state championships, the most by any girls high school basketball program since MSHSAA began organizing postseason state tournaments in 1973.

The first came in 1995 as coach Jim Johnson guided the Red Knights to a 51-50 victory against Jefferson City Helias in Class 3 as the team finished 29-4.

All others state championship have come under the guidance of coach Dan Rolfes and cover the years 2006, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018.

The program also has placed at the Final Four eight other times. The results include a second-place finish in 2008, five third-place finishes (1993, 1996, 2004, 2005, 2012) and two fourth-place showings (1999, 2016).

In the coach Rolfes era that began in the 2000-2001 season, 44 players have gone on to play college basketball, including 21 NCAA Division I players. The program has been ranked five times in the Top 25 by USA Today and finished No. 2 in 2014.

The winning formula has been a combination of ever-evolving offenses to fit a team’s overall skillset and intense, man-to-man defense that wears people out from one baseline to the other.

To Rolfes, the praise should go to the players, including those who have played unsung roles.

“There have been multiple times when the kids have proven me wrong,” Rolfes said. “I would see them as freshmen and sophomores and think they wouldn’t have that big of an impact. And by the time they are seniors, they are a big part of the program.”

Rolfes’ first team finished 23-8 and reached a state sectional, setting the tone for the rise of a giant.

It was 2004 and 2005 when the Red Knights were on the cusp of taking the state by storm. Those were two semifinal years that ended in third-place finishes – with the first trip only enhancing team-wide confidence, the second only fueling its fire.

Wootton was a standout on the 2006 team along with Ashlee Barrett, who played at Evansville and Toledo. The Red Knights beat nationally ranked Notre Dame de Sion 43-31 in the championship game.

“The 2006 team, there was a lot of passion with the kids,” Rolfes said. “I just felt like they were on a mission. We started to have success and we weren’t sneaking up on anybody anymore.”

Injuries the next season prevented a repeat, but Incarnate Word Academy did pull off back-to-back championships in 2010 and 2011, with the 2010 team led by Chloe Nelson and Jasmin Hutchens and having lost only once – to Chicago-based Whitney Young High School.

The 2011 team won it all in a Final Four that included three teams that had beaten IWA in the regular season – Webb City, Blue Springs and St. Joseph’s Academy.

“That was probably the most challenging Final Four,” Rolfes said.

The 2013 (31-0), 2014 (31-1) and 2015 (29-2) teams all won state titles with Napheesa Collier, who signed with the storied University of Connecticut Huskies. The 2017 (28-4) and 2018 (27-5) teams combined for nine losses, but the schedule now includes games against other nationally ranked teams.

The 2014 team, for instance, played eight teams in the Top 25 and was No. 1 for six weeks. It finished as the No. 2-ranked team only because of a late-season loss to Blackman High School (Tenn.), which the Red Knights had beaten earlier in the season.

Overall, to players and Rolfes, the winning is a reflection of one simple word but that isn’t so simple to develop: Teamwork.

“That’s probably my favorite part of Incarnate – teamwork, chemistry and everybody working within the system and not thinking they are bigger than anybody else,” Wootton said. “It’s just a team in every sense of the word.”