With 6-foot-9 DeWayne Brown in the middle of the Hoover offense, coach Scott Ware’s strategy is often the same.

“You feed the beast every game when you have a guy like that,” Ware said.

The ‘beast’ scored 24 points and pulled down 13 rebounds Saturday night and Salim London scored 34 points as No. 2-ranked Hoover pulled away to beat Central-Phenix City 84-66 in the Class 7A championship game at Legacy Arena.

Both London and Brown are sophomores.

“This is an incredible moment,” Ware said. “This is what you work for. We started Aug. 31 with our first one-hour practice. It’s been a grind. We talk about it being a marathon, not a sprint. We weeded our way through all the other teams and two teams were left. We won the sprint today.”

The win gave the Hoover boys their first state title since 2015 and gave the Hoover basketball program as a whole a rare sweep. The Hoover girls beat Sparkman earlier in the day to win their third straight title.

The Bucs are just the eighth team in AHSAA history to pull off the basketball sweep and the first since Tanner in 2011.

“When they won, it got us excited,” London said of the girls’ victory. “They won it and were walking back telling us we had to do it, too. So, we had to go win it.”

The game turned into a sophomore showcase between London and Brown and Central-Phenix City’s Jacoby Hill. Hill finished with 37 points – his second 30-point game in the final four – in a losing effort.

“This dude is MVP of the state. I don’t care what anybody says,” Central-Phenix City coach Charles Burkett said. “What is special about Jacoby is he is a true basketball player. He doesn’t go point hunting. He doesn’t take bad shots. His percentages are through the roof. When he has the opportunity to make the extra pass, he makes that pass.”

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Hill’s second stellar performance in Birmingham wasn’t enough on this night. The two teams traded scoring runs for much of the game. Hoover took a 32-31 halftime lead on Brown’s basket to end the second quarter. The Bucs didn’t trail again, outscoring Central 52-35 in the second half.

However, it wasn’t near as easy as it might seem. The Red Devils (24-10) closed to within 44-42 on Hill’s dunk with 3:11 left in the third. Hoover countered with a 10-3 run to end the quarter, grabbing a 54-45 lead on two free throws by Elijah Thomas.

“Those two guys carried us all year,” Ware said of Brown and London. “Obviously, they are really, really good players, and we are blessed to have them. But we have other players as well, and that is what got us here. You can do amazing things when it doesn’t matter who gets the credit. We have five guys on the floor who can score most of the time, and that’s pretty tough to defend.”

Central closed to within eight, 66-58, once in the fourth quarter, but could get no closer as the Bucs (31-4) successfully navigated the press for easy baskets down the stretch.

“We knew they were going to come at us hard,” Ware said. “We didn’t want to run the clock out. We wanted to keep scoring. We said to attack the press. ‘They will attack you, so attack back and go score.’ Our guys did a phenomenal job, and we needed to because they kept getting buckets as well.”

Stars of the Game: Brown and London combined for 58 points. Brown also had six blocks. London had six rebounds, two assists and two steals.

Stat sheet: Hoover – Senior Johnathan Caicedo had eight points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists. Central-Phenix City – Que Billingsley had 13 points, three steals and two assists.

By the numbers: Hoover outrebounded Central 41-21 and had an overwhelming 56-16 edge in points in the paint. The Red Devils stayed close most of the game with nine 3-pointers. The Red Devils went 17-of-22 from the foul line. Hoover was 19-of-31. The lead changed hands eight times.

They said it:

“Our girls are used to this. I guess I need to get some advice from her (Krystle Johnson). I guess you could say there is some pretty good basketball being played at Hoover.” – Ware.

“I came here from Florida and my goal was to win a state championship. I wanted to take the role of being a leader, and that is what I did. This means a lot.” – Caicedo.

“I thought a couple of our post players would be able to slow him down a little but, that wasn’t able to happen, so we had to go to five guards and try to spread the floor and make them defend. They kept coming, and we just ran out of gas basically.” – Burkett on defending Brown.

“Three weeks ago, the general public in the state didn’t have a clue who we were. As good a player as Jacoby is, they didn’t know who he was. For us to come in here and have a season like this speaks volumes for this team.” – Burkett.

“I just let the game come to me.” – Hill.