Earl Austin Jr. is celebrating his 30th year as the sports editor at 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. The next installment features a tremendous girls’ state tournament game between Cor Jesu Academy and Parkway South in 1996.
Cor Jesu Academy and Parkway South staged one of the most memorable girls’ high school basketball games of the decade in the 1990s. The two teams met in the quarterfinals of the 1996 Class 4A state tournament at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. The Mark Twain Building on UMSL’s campus seats more than 4,000, and it was filled to capacity for this showdown of emerging powerhouse programs.
The St. Louis area had just witnessed the four-year dominance of the St. Joseph’s Angels, who won four consecutive Class 4A state championships from 1991-1994. With star players Kristin Folkl and Mollie Pierick having graduated and moved to the collegiate ranks, the next two programs in line for the top spot in St. Louis were Cor Jesu and Parkway South.
Cor Jesu emerged as the top program, not only in St. Louis, but in the state in 1995 when it won the state championship. The Chargers went undefeated at 31-0 in winning its first state title. The Chargers had a superstar of their own in point guard Niele Ivey, who was an electrifying performer at both ends of the court. Ivey was a show-stopper who brought out big crowds to the girls’ games.
Leading the Cor Jesu program was future Hall of Fame head coach Gary Glasscock, who really got the Chargers program going after a nice run at Soldan High in the Public High League. Cor Jesu was looking for another Final Four berth and a repeat state championship in 1996.
The one team standing in their way was Parkway South, which had an experienced team that advanced to the state quarterfinals in 1995. Head coach Chris Ellis had done a tremendous job of building the South program up to where it was one of the best in the state. He started the Lady Patriots program as an excellent feeder system to the high school and it had paid big dividends. I had the honor of being the guest speaker at their basketball banquet after the 1995 season.
Parkway South had a senior-laden group with Georgia Desmond, Heather Frericks, Nicole Knappmiller and Erica Bremer back from its Elite Eight team. However, it was a newcomer to the Patriots team who was expected to tip the scales in their favor. That one player was Kelly Sutton, a very talented 5’10” sophomore forward. As a freshman, Sutton was at Cor Jesu, where she was a starter and key player in the Chargers run to the state championship. She scored 11 points in the Chargers’ victory over Park Hill in the championship game.
The girls basketball community was buzzing when Sutton left Cor Jesu after the 1995 season. It was really buzzing when she turned up at Parkway South. The season had not even started and folks were already talking about a Parkway South-Cor Jesu matchup sometime down the road.
When the two teams finally met up on that March afternoon at UMSL, it was Parkway South that had the No. 1 ranking in the area with Cor Jesu at No. 2.
The building was full and the atmosphere was electric. The young ladies on both teams responded by delivering a great game. Parkway South built an early lead, but Cor Jesu was able to battle back. The teams battled on even terms for the entire fourth quarter until the moment of truth came with the score tied at 59-59 with 15 seconds left in regulation. Everybody in the building was on their feet when Ivey took the inbounds pass. In superstar fashion, Ivey took a couple of dribbles and pulled up from the mid-range area and drilled the jumper to give Cor Jesu a 61-59 lead. The building erupted when Ivey’s shot dropped through the net.
Parkway South actually had one final possession and managed to get a couple of good shots off, but both misfired as the Chargers got the victory and a return trip to the Final Four in Columbia, where they finished in third place.
What a tremendous game it was. It was one of the best games of the decade.
Ivey went on to have an excellent college career at Notre Dame. She helped lead the Irish to the NCAA national championship in 2001 in her hometown of St. Louis. She also spent five seasons playing in the WNBA before entering the coaching ranks. She is currently the head coach at Notre Dame.
After Cor Jesu, Glasscock went back to the Public High League, where he built Metro High into a small-school powerhouse. Glasscock led Metro to five Final Four appearances and a pair of state championships in 2006 and 2007.
Ellis went on to the collegiate ranks at Maryville University, who became a Division III powerhouse under his direction. He led the Saints to a 92-game winning streak in the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference games, which is still a Division III national record. He was inducted into the Missouri Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame in 2022.