Vashon High’s triumphant journey in high school sports with Jacobi Green as a shining star in 2024.
To the champions go the medals, the plaques, the trophies and the accolades, and St. Louis prep athletes and teams had no shortage of title town winners in 2024. The title runs of city and North County athletes and teams, started last March and culminated last month on December 6, when the Lutheran North Crusaders routed the Festus Tigers of Jefferson County 46-7.
In case you missed some of the area champs in 2024, here’s a quick look back: In what would be Tony Irons last game as the Vashon Wolverines boys basketball coach, the “V” rolled to a fourth straight state title by overwhelming the upstart John Burroughs Bombers 68-37. Nassir Binion led Vashon with 25 points to give the storied program a fourth straight crown in Missouri Class 4 and fifth in six years.
By April, Irons had accepted the job to become Mineral Area Junior College’s coach, where his club has a 4-2 record thus far. Meanwhile, Irons’ successor at Vashon, former superstar player Jimmy McKinney has guided the Wolverines to a 12-1 record thus far, led by senior Trey Williams (averaging 18.2 points per game) and McKinney’s son of the same name averaging just over 13 points per game.
While Vashon was capturing the Class 4 title, Cardinal Ritter’s boys team took care of Class 5 by beating Chaminade 52-42 in the title game behind Nashawn Davis’ 18 points. Ironically, Chaminade was paced Jamison White with a game-high 21 points, who is the son of former Cardinal Ritter and Georgetown University star Jahidi White. The state title for Cardinal Ritter marked their fourth in the last five years under Ryan Johnson, a former CBC star.
Meanwhile in girls basketball, Lift for Life, the charter school in the city’s Soulard district, capture the Missouri Class 4 crown by routing Park Hills 75-57, as Amanda Manuel scored 19 and Zha Harris 18 points in the victory. It was the second state title for the Lady Hawks.
Of course, state titles have been the rule rather the exception with Vashon. The Wolverines boys basketball program boasts 15 state titles, not even counting three more it was stripped of for recruiting violations, their achievements are nationally-known. On the other hand, the school produced an individual athlete, who won a state title in the discus throw at the Missouri state track and field meet, which went completely under the radar.
Given the relative obscurity of many field events at a state meet, coupled with the fact that the sport itself doesn’t garner the attention Vashon basketball does at the school, even noted Vashon alumni didn’t know the school had ‘another state champion’ in 2024: Meet Vashon discus thrower Jacobi Green, who as a senior last spring captured the Missouri Class 3 boys discus throw with a heave of 168-feet, 11 inches to become the first-ever Public High League boys discus champion. In fact, Green’s throw was more than 10 feet better than anyone else in the field. As a point of school reference, Green became the Wolverines first field event champion since 2004 when DeAlan Hicks won the high jump. Green’s coach said her discus performer was consistent through all the rounds.
“All five of his (qualifying) throws would have won the event,” recalled Vashon track and field coach Jelani Bush. “A sixth throw landed out of bounds. Over the course of the season, he lost only once in the discus and that was to the eventual runner-up (Vijay Jones of Eldon) at state. Jacob’s strength is his intrinsic motivation, meaning he is self-motivated to compete at a high level. Most people respond only to extrinsic motivation, for example money or praise. Not Jacobi. He strives to be the best he can be regardless of external motivators . In addition, he never backed down when the competition was intense.”
It’s fair to surmise two other individual track and field state champs must always thrive under fierce competition: Metro’s Jaydon Marley, who won both the boys 100-meter dash (in a sizzling 10.72 seconds) and the 200 meters (in crack time of 21.75 seconds) in the Missouri Class 3 meet for the Panthers. Meanwhile in the Missouri Class 5 girls meet, Cardinal Ritter, which is less than a mile away from Metro in Midtown, also boasted a two-event state champion in hurdler Kyndall Spain, who won the 100-meter hurdles in 13.64 seconds and the 300-meter hurdles in 42.55 seconds for the Lady Lions. In the process, the Lions who had several individual victories (including Aniyah Brown in the 100 meters in 11.60 seconds) went on to win their fourth straight state title.
Speaking of state titles, Lutheran North’s all-everything Michael Clark was good as it gets in 2024. At the same meet, where Green of Vashon and Marley of Metro won gold medals, Clark accomplished the feat in the 400 meters, by winning in what is arguably called the toughest race in the sport (because it combines speed, form and endurance), in 47.88 seconds. That was last spring. Then this past fall, Clark caught 43 passes for 812 yards and 12 touchdowns, intercepted eight passes and scored 16 touchdowns overall to help lead the Crusaders to that aforementioned state title. Along the way, Clark caught two touchdown passes (of 33 and 43 yards) and the returned a kickoff 88 yards for a touchdown to help spark the Crusaders to an dramatic 50-48 conquest of the Cardinal Ritter Lions, which ended an epic 35-game winning streak by the Lions.
The good news for those Cardinal Ritter Lions was that home loss to the Lutheran North was the last weekend of the regular season, so the Lions still had a chance to shoot for a third straight state crown, this time in Class 5. The bad news was they eventually fell short of the ‘three-peat’ quest with a 30-18 loss to the visiting Lafayette Lancers in the state quarterfinals. The Lancers got off to a 14-0 and 21-12 at the intermission and never trailed. Lancer receiver Terrance Bills had touchdown receptions of 27 and 25 yards, but it was the Lancers relentless, tenacious defense, which contained Cardinal Ritter’s normally high-powered attack. Greg Robinson looked over-matched physically until the game started, then at a mere 5-feet, 8 inches tall and 165 pounds, he proceeded to make 15 tackles, including a couple of vicious hits. Fellow defenders Brady Calderon and Nathan Hutchinson also had double-digit tackles in that game.
“We had to be ready to match them physically,” said Lafayette coach Boyd Manne.
“We watched a lot of film,” said Robinson.
Indeed, being a regular student in the classroom, and a ‘student’ of film for your sport, is a trait, which Vashon’s track and field coach Jelani Bush helped make Jacobi Green the champion thrower that he was last spring.
“He’s a student of the sport (specifically the throwing events)” , diligently studying videos of the best throwers in the world while also critically analyzing videos of his own throws.”
In the end, Green, who received a full scholarship to Harris-Stowe, saved his best throws for last, and finished first in the process.
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