SAN ANTONIO — The Tatum Eagles (32-2) soared ahead early and never looked back, capturing the UIL Class 3A Division 1 State Championship with an 84-49 victory over the Columbus Cardinals (17-3) on Friday afternoon at the Alamodome.

The Eagles broke the game open with an 18-2 run in the first quarter, paced by JaCorie Bradley going 7-of-13 from the field and hitting two triples to score 16 points. Bradley finished the game with 26 points along with seven rebounds, two assists and three steals.

State championship MVP Luke Sigler put away 11 of his 26 points in the second quarter to help them along to a 50-19 lead at halftime. The Eagles, who’d been playing their standard full court, man-to-man approach, ran off the court showing no sign of tiring out.

“I think it’s a testament to them in that we’re pressing, we’re playing full court man, and I just want to show the other team that we aren’t going to wear down,” said Tatum head coach Brett Carr. “And quite frankly if we hadn’t gotten into such severe foul trouble we would’ve kept doing it. But we got such a good lead that we were just trying to protect ourselves and finish the game out.”

Tatum slowed the pace down in the third quarter, putting away 11 points while Columbus managed to outscore them with 17.

Columbus superstar Grayson Rigdon, who’s averaged over 40 points a game this season, picked up 22 of his 31 points for the game in the second half. A big part of why he was held to just nine in the first half was the defensive efforts of Cayden Tatum.

“He’s been our Defensive MVP in our district three years in a row. He always accepts a challenge. He wanted the kid the whole time. I thought he did a great job,” said Carr.

Heading into the final, Carr told the Eagles that Columbus was going to tempt them to shoot threes, but the game was going to be won from the free throw line and making layups. Most of all, he directed the team to not think about the pressure from the hopes and expectations of the community, social media or anything else.

“Don’t let it be pressure. This is ours,” Carr told them. “It has nothing to do with anyone else.”

By the final minutes of the fourth quarter, Tatum’s starters were taking a seat and the bench guys got in there to wrap up what’s been a dream season for this team.

Junior Cooper Whiteus, who had 11 points, four rebounds, four assists, three steals and one block against Columbus, said he felt like they were going to win this title after their area championship against Liberty-Eylau, which was 34-0 before that.

“We knew we had a shot coming in to the season… After that Liberty-Eylau game it really gave us a boost of confidence,” said Whiteus. “We came out every game after and started off hot. So I think after Liberty-Eylau, we had it done.”

Several of the seniors on the team had set a goal for themselves to be back at the state championship when they were eighth graders, a year they watched Tatum reached the tournament and come up short of the title.

“I thought we had a chance in seventh grade, growing up with all these guys,” noted Sigler. “We didn’t have JaCorie then, but when I saw him freshman year, I was like man, he’ll be a good one.”

Bradley’s role model in basketball has always been his dad, Tatum Assistant Coach Jayme Bradley, who was part of Tatum’s 2003 state finalist team and whose jersey hangs in the Eagle Coliseum today as a hometown legend.

“He made it down here and didn’t finish the job, but we did,” said Bradley, who credits his success and his ability to help out the team with all the hard work he’s done side by side with his dad on the court and in the gym.

Rounding up the stat sheet for Tatum Friday afternoon was Jordan Chambers, who double-doubled with 13 points and 13 rebounds and had five assists and one block, Sigler with seven rebounds, two assists and three steals, Cayden Tatum with two points, five rebounds, two assists and one steal and Nalayus Boyd with six points, two rebounds, three assists and three steals.

Carr is retiring after this season, his first time ending on a win with a state title.

“I’ve had great kids for 21 seasons at Tatum,” said Carr. “And I couldn’t have asked for anything better than that. It’s been phenomenal. We’ve had a number of good teams that never made it down here. For them to win it, and for what they invested, even in the summers, what we’ve done between the time we were sophomores and now to finish, it’s like a storybook.”