Heritage led the contest from the opening whistle, leaving no doubt in the wire-to-wire victory over a West Brook team ranked in the top 100 nationally.
The Coyotes opened a 13-7 lead after the first quarter before extending their advantage to 30-13 at the half. Heritage pushed the lead to 36-15 with 5:04 remaining in the third quarter but West Brook responded with a 12-0 run to cut the deficit to 36-27 late in the stanza.
Bryson Howard is the son of former Dallas Mavericks standout Josh Howard. (FILE PHOTO: Michael Horbovetz)
Following the West Brook run, Howard continued his dominant performance with a personal 6-0 run to give his team a 42-29 lead headed into the fourth quarter.
Heritage (34-2) finishes the season with a 29-game winning streak following back-to-back losses in November. The Coyotes outscored their opponents by 22.9 points per contest on the season.
Although the Coyotes won five of their six state tournament games by double-digits, they needed a last-second floater from SMU signee
Cameron Lomax to lift them to a 65-63 victory over
Birdville (North Richland Hills) in their semifinal contest earlier in the week.
Lomax tallied 15 points, five rebounds, five steals and four assists Saturday in the title game.
Howard and Lomax formed one of the top one-two punches in high school basketball this season as the tandem combined to average 58.9 points per contest. Lomax averaged 26.2 points, 5.2 rebounds and 3.6 assists per contest on the season while Howard posted 22.7 points, 8.4 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game.
West Brook (34-4) saw its 25-game win streak snapped in the title-game loss. The Bruins had outscored their state tournament opponents by an average of 22.2 points per outing coming into the championship showdown.
