LAKE CHARLES – The goal for the 2024-25 Plainview boys basketball team, dating back to their junior high days, has always been to earn a banner on the wall in their gym, for reaching the state tournament.

The Hornets accomplished that by reaching Marsh Madness this week, and made an even deeper, and far-reaching mark by winning it all Friday afternoon at Burton Coliseum.

Plainview upended Pleasant Hill 58-54 for the LHSAA’s Class C state championship, the school’s first in 60 years, since back-to-back titles in 1964-65. The Hornets (29-3) got 28 points and 14 rebounds from the game’s Outstanding Player, ZeQuan Lewis, who had 23 points and 20 rebounds Monday in a 64-55 semifinal win over Gibsland-Coleman.

“I just wanted to come out there and play hard for my team, and get the W,” said Lewis, who has roots in Plainview but spent his first three years of high school in Texas before transferring back to play with his junior high teammates – and to pursue that dream of a banner on the gym wall.

“Since these guys were seventh graders, they’ve wanted their names on the wall. Their sisters are on the wall, their brothers, their dads, their grandads,” said Plainview coach Dustin Howard, a Plainview native who previously coached the Lady Hornets to a state championship. “I’m just proud we got that done, and in a big way.”

Two other seniors didn’t have big statistical games Friday but made pivotal impact.           

Nathan Fee has the Hornets’ second-best season scoring average (17 per game) but hurt an ankle in the quarterfinal win over Hornbeck and had to miss Monday’s semifinal win. He came off the bench Friday and scored 8 points with 6 rebounds, sinking 2 of 3 from 3-point range.

“I knew these guys would get us through (to the finals),” said Fee. “Two days ago, I tried to practice and couldn’t run on my ankle. Thankfully coach put me in the game and I was able to make a few shots.”

Dallas Harrison – whose grandfather played on the 1965 state champion Hornets team — started and was a defensive and inspirational sparkplug, as usual.

“He’s the heart and soul of our team,” said Howard. “Dallas is the captain, he’s the leader, he’s the glue guy.”

There were 8 ties and 10 lead changes, although the Hornets led for 21 of the 32 minutes.

It was a three-point play by Harrison with 3:31 to go that pushed Plainview ahead for good, 50-48. A rebound and basket by Lewis at 2:43 made it 52-48, and after the Eagles got a bucket with 1:15 left Lewis answered right back on a jump shot 13 seconds later.

Two P-Hill free throws with 47 seconds left closed the Eagles within 54-52, but Lewis went to the line and made three straight, sandwiched around a vital rebound by the team’s fourth senior, Damien Martin, of a missed jumper by Pleasant Hill with 18 seconds to go.

The Eagles got it down to a one-possession margin one more time on two free throws with six seconds left, but Plainview was able to inbound the ball cleanly. Lewis sank a freebie with two seconds remaining that locked up the outcome and sent the large crowd of green-clad Plainview supporters into a frenzy.

It also put Plainview into the LHSAA history books as a state champion once again.