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Stats, stars and scholarship offers don’t matter to Reece Lafferty.

Winning does.

So Lafferty doesn’t care how many points you average, how many stars are on your Rivals profile or how many colleges are longing for your services.

You aren’t better than him.

It was that mentality - one shared by the entire Kingfisher High School boys basketball team - that carried the Yellowjackets back to the mountaintop.

KHS dominated from the tip Saturday night at State Fair Arena and offered Heritage Hall a bit of payback in a 59-39 drubbing in the Class 4A state championship game.

The title was the second in three years for KHS with a runner-up finish in between.

That silver ball was due to the Chargers beating KHS in the 2018 title tilt, ending the Jackets’ undefeated season and a chance at a repeat crown.

On Saturday, the Yellowjackets ended Heritage Hall’s own bid for an unblemished record and second straight title.

“That’s all I wanted. I didn’t want anyone else,” said Lafferty, one of three senior starters, and five seniors overall, who were part of last year’s loss on “Championship Saturday.”

“I wanted to show them we could beat them.”

Kingfisher did just that with a defense never before seen in a three-game run at the state tournament.

The Jackets didn’t allow Heritage Hall to score for more than five minutes to start the game, surrendered just 11 in the first half and again held the Chargers scoreless for more than four minutes to begin the second half.

Heritage Hall lit up the scoreboard for 74 points in both the state quarterfinals and semifinals, but had just 20 through three quarters against the suffocation of the Jackets. The Chargers were held to 29 percent (13 of 45) shooting overall, including 20 percent (4 of 20) from 3-point range.

Trey Alexander, the super sophomore who almost single-handedly shot his team to the title a year earlier, was held to 12 points, less than half his season average.

Without him sinking shots, Heritage Hall was a rudderless ship for more than three quarters.

But how did Kingfisher do it? What defensive concoction did the KHS coaches conjure up to throw off the Chargers?

Turns out, it was more of an attitude.

“We actually came out and didn’t do anything different,” head coach Jared Reese said. “We guarded them like we guard everyone else. We said, ‘We’ve been so good defensively the last month, let’s not do anything different and see if they’re good enough to beat us.’”

The Chargers weren’t and it started with Lafferty.

The least-heralded of Kingfisher’s starters, Lafferty doesn’t get the point totals of his teammates and usually is assigned the toughest defensive task.

And while Kingfisher almost always switches on defense, giving everyone their own shot at guarding the likes of Alexander, it was Lafferty most often cutting off a driving lane or sticking a hand in his face.

Most importantly, he wasn’t backing down.

“I don’t like giving anyone the upper hand,” Lafferty said. “I give him the ‘equal to or lesser-than-me’ treatment. I don’t like to think of him as a big D-1 prospect. I just guard him like I can.”

Kingfisher guarded him like nobody else has. Alexander was 3 of 14 shooting and made one field goal after the first quarter. He missed all six of his 3-point attempts.

“To me, our defense is the best in the state, hands-down,” said sophomore Matthew Stone. “That’s our No. 1 thing in practice and we did that tonight.”

Kingfisher did it all three nights.

The 109 points allowed in the state tournament was the fewest allowed in a three-game run for any team from 2A through 6A. Ever.

“That’s what we stress all year in practice, defense, defense, defense and we barely get in any offense,” said Jett Sternberger, who was named state tournament MVP by The Oklahoman for the second time. “Sometimes shots don’t fall and the offense isn’t working, but defense always travels.”

Both teams struggled out of the gate and when Alexander put Heritage Hall on the board at 2:32 of the first quarter, the Jackets had only posted six points of their own.

When Trey Green made a pair of free throws with 1.6 seconds left in the first quarter to put KHS up 10-4, it was the start of a 12-0 run for the Jackets.

Just as Heritage Hall was about to take some momentum into halftime with a 6-0 run, Sternberger nailed a 3-pointer from the corner while being fouled by Phillip Smitherman with 5.3 seconds showing.

His four-point play led to a 24-11 halftime lead.

The Chargers cut into their deficit by two points in the third quarter and pulled within 33-24 on a pair of Jack Spanier free throws with 6:36 to play.

But that was as close as it got for the Chargers.

They were still within nine points with just over 5:00 to play when Green knocked down a floater in the lane. After a Kingfisher stop, Green fed Sternberger for another corner trey.

Alexander tried to answer, but his driving shot missed its mark.

Green rebounded, passed to Bijan Cortes who drove, sucked in the defense, then kicked out to Stone for yet another trey.

The nine-point advantage had ballooned to 44-27 in a matter of moments.

“With the kind of firepower they have, you never know when it’s over, but we felt really good about the time Jett and Matt hit back-to-back 3’s,” Reese said.

The Jackets continued to pile on.

Lafferty was fouled by William McDonald with 3:29 left. The lone offensive spark for the Chargers, McDonald’s night was done with his fifth foul. He also scored 12 for the Chargers, eight in the second half.

Seconds later, Lafferty’s putback while being fouled - and the ensuing free throw - gave KHS an 18-point lead with 3:05 to play.

He finished with seven points and four rebounds.

“I’m not usually the scoring type on our team, but I wanted it and I went and got it,” he said.

Sternberger scored 19 points and grabbed eight rebounds to lead the team in both categories.

Cortes had 11 points, four rebounds and three assists.

Green added 10 points and six boards.

Stone filled up the sheet with eight points, five rebounds and three steals.

But it was the defense that had the Big House buzzing.

“In the locker room before the game, the coaches said to just play defense like we have all year,’” Green said. “Of course they’re a great team, they’re an amazing team, but we’ve got to treat them like they’re nothing special, keep our principles and just play ball.”

The fact the Jackets were facing Heritage Hall didn’t hurt from a motivational perspective.

“Heritage Hall has ended several of our seasons, whether it be in football, baseball, basketball,” Reese said. “We were just really into this game. We thought if there’s ever a time we could beat them, it’s tonight. We thought we had the better team and we proved it.”

Like Stone, Cortes has just two losses in his varsity career. He didn’t want to let the chance to avenge one of those defeats to pass by.

“I just wanted to come back and prove we were better and prove we could go out there and beat them,” he said.

Green infamously had his nose broken and several teeth cracked and loosened in a collision with Mc-Donald during the 2018 championship. Although he returned to put on an epic performance, his team ultimately fell short.

He, as much as anyone, wanted another shot at the Chargers.

“I couldn’t go to bed until 3 a.m. last night because I was so amped up,” he said. “I couldn’t get my mind off the game.”

Green said the team could sense Heritage Hall trying to find its way back into contention after the third quarter.

“Coming out of the huddle at the end of the third quarter, we said ‘Do we want to feel like we did last year?’” he recalled. “We didn’t, so we locked up on defense and we finished it off.”

Sternberger said the feeling walking off the State Fair Arena court in 2018 was one of the worst of his life.

“I wouldn’t wish that upon anybody, knowing everything you did wasn’t good enough at the time,” he said.

“But it fueled the fire. You just go into the next year and you work and you work…and it paid off.”

Sternberg-er finished his career as Kingfisher’s all-time leading scorer with 2,037 points. He’s also won more games than any other Yellowjacket as a starter with 103.

The current crop of seniors have two state championships, a runner-up finish and an 8-1 state tournament record.

“I can’t even think of words for it,” Sternberger said of his career, which includes 149 points in state tournament games. “That doesn’t happen to many kids. All the hard work I’ve done since a little kid paid off in a big way.”

Green joined KHS as a sophomore. Had he not suffered a broken hand and missed several games that season, he’d be joining Sternberger in the 2,000-point club.

As it is, he scored 1,970 career points, including 119 in the state tournament the last three years.

“At the end, we put in the work and this is the result of it,” said Green, who was named to the all-tournament team.

Work is what landed the Jackets in their current lofty spot, Reese said.

That spot includes a 28-1 record this season, matching the school record set in 2017 and tied last year. Over three seasons, the Yellow-jackets are 74-5.

Kingfisher’s lone loss this season was a 65-61 setback at the Tournament of Champions to Booker T. Washington, the team that captured the Class 6A championship last weekend.

“There’s nobody who works harder than those guys, especially on their own, especially Jett and Trey. They put hours and hours and hours on their own in the gym,” Reese said.

And as dozens upon dozens of future Yellowjackets waited for the likes of Lafferty and Stone and Cortes and Sternberger and Green to come across the barrier so they could, at the very least, get a closer glimpse of their heroes, Reese had a message for them.

“For any little kid out there who wants to be good, you couldn’t work harder than those guys. It’s no secret. That’s how you get good at basketball. You practice,” he said.

Then he looked over at his team.

“They did it and they were rewarded on the biggest stage. It’s been an amazing run.”