Earl Austin Jr. is celebrating his 30th year as the sports editor of The St. Louis American. To commemorate the occasion, Earl has put together a list of 30 of the top high school games that he’s witnessed during those 30 years. In his latest installment, Earl takes a look at the 1996 Missouri Class 2A state basketball semifinals between Cardinal Ritter College Prep and Pembroke Hill. It was one of the biggest small-school games in the history of the state tournament.
For many years, I have enjoyed covering the Missouri state basketball championships that involve the smaller schools. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, I would make my annual trip to Springfield to cover the Class 1A-2A state championships at the Hammons Center on the campus of Missouri State University. Eventually, those state tournament games would move to the Hearnes Center in Columbia on Mizzou’s campus.
Wherever the games were being played, the one thing you can count on was those small schools were going to attract huge crowds as the whole town and people from the surrounding areas would come out to support those teams. I saw some great teams such as Scott County Central, Portageville, Wellston, Clopton and many others places.
In those small school games, one might not have seen as many top level Division I prospects or future pros as you might have seen at the large school state tournament games. However, the Final Four of the 1996 Class 2A state tournament in Columbia was a little bit different, especially the semifinals showdown between Cardinal Ritter College Prep and Pembroke Hill. This was not your ordinary Class 2A state tournament game.
In this particular contest, you had two teams from the two big cities at both ends of the state. Cardinal Ritter is located in St. Louis while Pembroke Hill is in Kansas City. And the talent level in this matchup was of the highest quality. Cardinal Ritter had won the state championship in 1995 and was looking for a repeat. Their biggest challenge would come from this talented young squad from Pembroke Hill.
Cardinal Ritter was led by its dynamic duo of Chris Carrawell and Loren Woods. Carrawell was a 6’6” senior forward who had already committed to national power Duke University. Woods was a 7’1” senior center who was named to the McDonald’s All-American team. He was headed to Wake Forest. Carrawell was a brilliant all-around player while Woods was a dominant center who was the best shot blocker in the country. The third standout player for Ritter was 6’5” senior guard Brian Brown, who had signed with William & Mary.
Pembroke Hill had a pair of national-level players as well in 6’7” sophomore forward JaRon Rush and his younger brother, 6’4” freshman guard Kareem Rush. The Rush brothers were dominant players in the Kansas City area. JaRron Rush would eventually play at UCLA while Kareem Rush stayed in state to play at Missouri. JaRon was a tremendous athlete with wonderful skills while Kareem was a silky-smooth left-handed shooting guard.
“The fact that you had five or six high level Division I players on the floor for that game was remarkable,” said then Cardinal Ritter head coach Preston Thomas. “Not only were they Division I players, but they had NBA potential at the time. That was almost unheard of to see at the small school level.”
A large crowd packed the Hearnes Center to see this big showcase of national talent that you don’t always see at the Class 2A level. All of the prime-time players showed up and showed out in the first half, which had fans on the edge of their seats. There were plenty of high-flying dunks, blocked shots and great end-to-end action with this collection of great athletes on the floor. Most of the fans in attendance were neutral observers who marveled at the talent.
Pembroke Hill jumped out to an early lead as JaRon Rush got things going with a couple of perimeter buckets. He was being guarded by Woods, who was playing off of him, which led to Rush knocking down consecutive jumpers.
The Raiders led throughout the first half until the end when Brian Brown hit a 3-pointer just ahead of the halftime buzzer to give Cardinal Ritter a one-point lead going into the locker room. In the second half, Cardinal Ritter took advantage of their superior size and started to dominate the paint.
Ritter’s size and athleticism eventually wore down Pembroke Hill and the Lions came away with a 64-50 victory. All of the stars shined as Carrawell scored 22 points and Woods added 20 points to lead the Lions. JaRon Rush scored 23 points and Kareem Rush scored 19 points for Pembroke Hill. The difference in the game for Cardinal Ritter was Brown, who finished with 15 points. He hit a number of key perimeter shots over the course of the game. He was definitely the X-Factor.
“Brian turned out to be the X-factor in a number of games that season,” Thomas said. “When he played against teams with comparable talent, he was usually the difference.”
Cardinal Ritter went on to defeat Hollister to repeat as state champions and its third in six years. Pembroke Hill finished in third place, then went on to win the next three Class 2A state titles behind the Rush brothers.
Chris Carrawell went on to be a four-year starter at Duke, where he was the Player of the Year in the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2000. Loren Woods began his career at Wake Forest, then transferred to Arizona, where he helped the Wildcats to a berth in the NCAA Tournament national championship game in 2022. JaRon Rush was a two-year standout at UCLA while Kareem Rush starred for four years at Mizzou and went on to play nine seasons in the National Basketball Association.