In recent years, Nixa felt like it had teams capable of winning state championships. Unfortunately, those teams went head-to-head with historic Kickapoo teams in their own district and came up short.
Finally, this year the Eagles got over the hump, beat the Chiefs and dominated in their state quarterfinal to advance to their first state semifinal appearance since 2012.
"Coach said, basically, that whoever came out of our district was going to go to the final four," junior Kael Combs said. "We knew that was going to be big for us and we're just happy that we pulled through.