INDIANAPOLIS - Of course there were tears and hugs and smiles and, in the end, glory. Why not? Without Lecretia Smith, Elmhurst would not be the Class 3A girls' basketball champion. Without this senior standout, there would not be a $1,000 scholarship in her name going to the school.

So Smith basked in Lucas Oil Stadium acclaim, the recipient of the mental attitude award and lots of love from family, coaches and teammates.

“I didn't expect all this,” she said.

Nobody understands Smith's impact better than Trojans coach Mark Redding. He remembers Smith when she was the young player who could, a post-only presence who became so much more thanks to heart more than talent.

“She worked so hard to develop her game and become an all-around player,” Redding said. “She became one of our better defensive players. She won the mental attitude award and the first state title for Elmhurst.”

Yes, the Trojans (25-2) had plenty of help in beating Owen Valley 62-59 in Saturday's title game. There was forward Liza Clemons, a Purdue recruit who totaled 10 points, seven rebounds and three assists. There was guard Lacia Gorman, a Michigan State recruit who had six points, three rebounds and three steals. There was freshman-acting-as-senior Rose Lewis, who totaled 10 points and eight rebounds and played huge down the stretch.

But no Trojan, not even James Hardy, the two-sport Elmhurst standout who later became an All-America receiver at Indiana and now catches passes for the Buffalo Bills, meant more to an Elmhurst team than Smith.

She is a 5-10 playmaker bound for Toledo. She posts hard and dives harder. She scores, rebounds and defends (she had a game-high 23 points and 12 rebounds), but what she does better than anybody else is lead.

“She's our symbol of Elmhurst,” Redding said. “Her leadership on the court you can't put into words. What she does off the court to help these young kids.”

Young kids were everywhere, considering Smith was the only senior.

“We're young,” Redding said, “and the reason we're here is because of her work. She's helping them out in timeouts, helping them in the locker room.”

In Saturday's game, when the Trojans sometimes jacked up unnecessary shots, help took a blunt tone.

“That's not what we need,” Smith would tell a teammate.

“At certain times in the game you have to slow down and know what's going on,” she said. “At certain points we didn't need the shots we were taking. We needed to move the ball, do what we do and not force things. That's when I needed to step in.”

Few high school players step so forcefully.

“The way she plays on the court is the way she practices,” Redding said. “That work ethic shows the younger kids what it takes to get to this level.”

The Trojans reached an unprecedented level with their state title, the first ever for the school. Their relentless pressure nearly broke Owen Valley in the first quarter (“We knew they were never going to let up,” Owen Valley coach Tom Anderson said. “No matter what the situation, they were going to pressure you.”), let the Patriots back in it in the second quarter, fell behind by three points in the fourth quarter, then rallied with crunch-time execution.

“We thought they were rattled and wearing out,” forward Liza Clemons said about Elmhurst's early onslaught that produced a 20-11 lead that could have been a lot bigger. “Our theme was to keep pushing it, keep pushing it.”

And then, when Owen Valley (24-3) pushed back for its 53-50 lead in the closing minutes, the Trojans responded as champions do.

“In the fourth quarter, Cre (Smith) said we had to pick it up,” Clemons said. “Our coaches said, ‘We can't let this go.' We had to bring all we had that last quarter. That's what we did.”

Credit the motivation born from last season's semistate loss to Warsaw.

“We had a great season last year (finishing 23-3), but it didn't end the way we wanted it to,” Smith said. “We set goals this season. That's what set us apart from before. We met every one of our goals. (This) was our last goal. We did it.”

So of course when it was over, Smith let the tears flow.

“Everything was going through my head. I was reminiscing about how hard I'd worked to get to this point. When I stepped out on that court how bad I wanted it. You go so far, everybody doubting us and telling us this and that, to come here and win, it's a great feeling. I didn't expect it, but we got it.”