Paige Bueckers woke up Saturday feeling like doing anything but playing basketball.
"Paige was throwing up this morning and sicker than a dog," Hopkins coach Brian Cosgriff said.
With the Class 4A championship game just hours away, the timing could hardly have been worse.
In the end, it mattered little. Hopkins used a 44-10 second-half blitz to rout Stillwater 74-45 to win the Class 4A state championship Saturday at Williams Arena. It's the Royals seventh state championship since 2004, but the first time they've done it without losing a game, completing the season 32-0.
"This is like the best ever, I'm not going lie to you," Cosgriff said.
Bueckers, Hopkins' scintillating junior guard, said she never entertained thoughts of sitting the game out, no matter how ill she was feeling. There was too much at stake: a state championship, obviously, but also a reputation, with the Royals having lost title games the past three seasons.
"I didn't care what was happening this morning, I was coming to play with my team," she said. "Talk has been I came up short three years in a row. Is my legacy going to be I can get to the state title but I can't win one?"
For a half, Stillwater played the role of dream-killer to perfection.