On March 3, 1992, Wahoo played in its seventh consecutive district title game and faced one of its toughest district finals, going against Omaha Roncalli who brought a 17 - 5 record into the championship contest. The Crimson Pride had admittedly been looking forward to a chance at Wahoo since January. The Warriors were prepared -- in fact, probably more prepared than most teams to play any opponent in their district. During the championship runs, the Wahoo coaching staff had made it standard procedure to get a look at all the teams in the district well in advance of the time coming to actually play any of them, and were very cognizant of the fact that they would only actually face three of the other seven teams. In commenting about the Wahoo dynasty, Bennington coach, Bob Kremke noted that Wahoo “never did play Boys Town, but they prepared for them.” The result of all the scouting on Roncalli was a game plan that called for a special defense, a unique defense that many coaches would describe as a “junk” defense.

The Wahoo plan was to try to take Roncalli’s two biggest offensive assets out of the game by putting Joel Weyand on guard, Ryan Woodard, and Mike Hancock / Ryan Glock on forward Todd Fitzgerald while the other three Wahoo defenders were in a zone defense. This “triangle and two” defense was nothing new -- it was part of what Wahoo called its “slime defenses” and Wahoo had used the tactic often in the past. But this time there was a new wrinkle -- the “slime” was extended into a full court press. Coach Mick Anderson called it a 1-1-1 press and he noted, “if you haven’t heard of it, we haven’t either. We just made it up.”

The defensive tactic, along with an offense that had shifted into high gear for the tournament, served the Warriors well. Jeff Simons hit high gear faster than any of the Warriors. The senior guard, playing some of the best basketball of his career, came out strong and posted a ten point first quarter that put Wahoo ahead 16 - 10. Simons followed that with a nine point second quarter, and was matched by fellow senior, Trent Toline. Much of the second quarter scoring spree was the result of the “junk” defense. At one point, the press forced three consecutive Roncalli turnovers that Wahoo capitalized on for seven points. At the end of the half, Wahoo was in command with a 34 - 19 lead.

The Crimson Pride didn’t quit and made a run at Wahoo in the third quarter, trimming the lead to twelve points. But Simons was having none of it and he responded with consecutive three point goals that combined with a conventional three point play by Travis Toline expanded the lead again to twenty points. The Warriors kept Roncalli at bay in the fourth quarter and went on to claim a 72 - 51 district championship win.

The “junk” strategy had paid off for the Warriors. Ryan Woodard, who had scored twenty the previous night against Boys Town, couldn’t shake Weyand and only got off eight shots, going 0 - 5 from three point range, and finishing with just four points. Fitzgerald did manage 21, but that wasn’t enough to keep up with the Wahoo senior duo of Simons with 29 and Trent Toline with 25. Simons commented on his performance, “I though it was time to take control and help these guys back to the state tournament.”

And the reality was that Simons had done just that. Roncalli coach, Doug Woodard noted, “It’s no secret why they’re so successful. They rise to the occasion in the big game.” Simons agreed: “In big games, we always seem to come through.” The Warriors had stepped up and met the challenge -- with senior leadership, a potent offense and a stingy defense they had reached their goal of returning to Lincoln to defend their title. Oh, and they threw in a little “junk” just to make sure.

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In the B8 District at Alliance, Ogallala had no trouble earning their ticket to the state tournament as they downed Chadron, 74 - 44. When they watched the sport news that night, they saw that they were one step closer to their opportunity to take on Wahoo as the Warriors were also returning to Lincoln.