COLUMBUS — The student body of Columbus Christian Academy gathered in the school gymnasium on Wednesday to celebrate the Class 2A state championship-winning basketball team. Each player took part of the home court home with them, cutting a piece of the net down to celebrate the team’s second state title in three years.

“For people to be excited and celebrate all the hard work that they put in, this year and in years past, it’s big,” head coach Billy Thomas said. “It’s big to see your peers cheer for you and your success.”

For many of the players, it was their second time cutting down the net. Senior Presley Andrews, who won as a sophomore in her first year as a Ram, relished the opportunity to win championships. 

“When I came as a sophomore, from a big public school to a small school, it was a big shift. It was exciting when we won state, we had a lot of momentum going into last year.” 

The Rams fell short of a repeat in the championship game in 2024, but that’s when Andrews and her teammates realized the culture they were in. They had the drive to get back and set things right this year. 

“We basically said, ‘We may have lost but we’re coming back next year,’” Andrews said of her and her teammates. “It took a lot of perseverance to get that in our minds, that we’re coming back, it took hard work but we knew it was our year. You want to win and go out your final year with a state championship.”

“Basketball has always been important as long as I’ve been here,” teammate Carrie Kinard added. “Last year we were pretty devastated but we knew we had to put the work in and we’d get back here. We worked all throughout the offseason and the season for this.”

Kinard, a junior, has another year left of high school and basketball with the Rams. She plans to carry on the same mindset her friends in the Class of 2025 have had, and refocus the team’s efforts to winning the next one in 2026. 

“I’m excited. The seniors have carried on a good tradition, and hopefully we can get back and do it again next year. It’s a motivation, we enjoy what we did this weekend, but we’re motivated already to get back there next year.”

“That’s our mentality, it’s what everyone wants,” Andrews added. “We want what’s best for the team and for the program that we leave.”

Thomas, who oversaw his second state title as a head coach, is seeing the kind of winning culture that he always imagined for the Rams. He gave praise to his players for buying into the program and each other to help build something special, both for themselves and for the Rams players after them. 

“About seven years ago we talked about how we wanted to change the culture here, and the things that it would take to do that,” he said. “You never know if a team will buy in, but these girls from middle school on up have bought in and our program is as good as there is, I think. Anytime you have a culture of expectation to win, and a group of young athletes who put in the work, your chances of reaching those goals are extremely high.”