Clayton Boys Extend Season With District Championship

Clayton and its star senior tandem will bring a five-game winning streak into its Class 4 basketball sectional showdown against Soldan at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Parkway West in Ballwin.

Senior guard Ahmad Smith and senior swingman Christian Thomas hope to extend the Greyhounds’ season with a win against the Class 4 District 5 champion. Soldan (20-6) defeated Jennings, 77-35, on Friday night to advance.

Clayton (22-6), meanwhile, took the Class 4 District 6 crown with an 80-70 victory over University City in Clayton on Friday night. Thomas scored 28 points in the title game, and Smith added 27 as Clayton used a game-ending 17-4 run to knock out the Lions.

"Big-time players make big-time plays in this kind of game," Clayton head coach Ryan Luhning told University City Patch after that game. "And Christian Thomas and Ahmad Smith are as good as they get in the area. They led us to this victory, and that’s what seniors are supposed to do.”

For this season, Thomas is averaging 22 points per game while Smith is scoring 21.7. Thomas also leads Clayton with averages of 13.3 rebounds 2.3 blocks and 1.7 steals per game.

It is Clayton’s first district basketball championship in five years. The Greyhounds won the Suburban East Conference with a 5-0 mark while Soldan went 8-0 in the Public High League Conference.

For the Clayton girls, the season ended with a nice run despite a final mark of 10-17. The Greyhounds won two straight games before falling, 44-41, to a high-caliber MICDS team that is 22-2. In that district semifinal on Wednesday, Clayton senior forward Erin Bax scored 12 points.