On Dec. 22, 2025, White County High School Warriors went into the championship round of Frank’s Christmas Shootout where they took on undefeated Cannon County Lions.
The Lions were on a 10-game win streak, which was broken by the Warriors in this championship in a close matchup ending 56-53.
The Warriors started off finding the basket, scoring 11 points in the first quarter. Cole Sims had 8 of the 11 points followed by Tucker Pinion who scored 3 points.
The Lions trailed close behind putting up 8 points, with Miles Alexander having 4 points followed by Lukas Phillips and Levi Hatfield who each had 2 points.
Into the second quarter, the Warriors continued to find the basket with Tucker Pinion and Cole Sims each having 7 points and Lukas Smith having 1. This put the Warriors at 26 points going into half time.
However, Cannon County stepped up offensively putting up 20 points this quarter. Anderson Lara scored 8, followed by Lukas Phillips and Miles Alexander with 4 points apiece, and Lucas Alford and James Walkup both scoring 2 points apiece.
This left the Warriors trailing behind the Lions by two points going into halftime, with the score at 26-28.
The Warriors came back, scoring 17 points in the third quarter. Tucker Pinion and Cole Sims both put up 7 points apiece, with Mason Steele scoring the other 3.
The Lions moved the ball in the third, having five different players score. Anderson Lara scored 5 points followed by Miles Alexander who scored 4. The rest of the points this quarter were from James Walkup, Levi Hatfield, and Lukas Phillips who all three scored 2.
This left the game tied, 43-43 only having eight minutes for a team to prove who wants the win more going into the fourth quarter.
The Warriors were led in scoring by Cole Sims who had 7 points resulting from foul shots. Following Sims was once again Pinion who had 6 points. This left the Warriors with 13 points in the fourth quarter in this back-and-forth ballgame.
Cannon County was shut down defensively by White County, only scoring 10 points. Lukas Philips and Anderson Lara each had 4 points while Miles Alexander had the other 2.
This left the score of the game at 56-53, with the Warriors winning the championship game. The Warriors were ecstatic to win this after placing runner-up the past two years in this very same tournament.
Head coach Eric Mitchell spoke on this major win.
“It feels good," Mitchell said. "We’ve had a lot of seconds, and the boys just played hard and you know, we came out with a win at our Christmas shootout. We got second last year and the year before, so it feels good.”
Player of the game went to junior Cole Sims who scored 29 points, this being Sims' second time receiving this accolade this tournament. Sims had strong feelings after being able to break Cannon County's win streak.
“Cannon County was a really well coached team that plays hard, so getting this win feels great not only for me but for our team as a whole," Sims said.
Another junior, Tucker Pinion, was asked what his feelings were going into such an important game.
“I was really confident because we’ve been playing really good lately, and I treated this just how I would any other game, not like a championship game,” Pinion said.
This leaves the Warriors with an 11-1 record going into the rest of Christmas break. The Warriors are set to take on Van Buren County, on Jan. 2, being their first game of 2026.
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