The St. Louis U. High basketball coach, Claggett’s thoughts went to a multitude of places, none of which were good.

“I can’t say what I was thinking,” Claggett said with a chuckle. “The main thing was I was hoping he was OK. When he turned over and said he was good, I was in good shape.”

The 5-foot-7 Walker is a four-year varsity stalwart who leads the area in assists per game (7.83) and steals per game (5.08). He needed some assistance as he limped off the court to the trainer’s room not halfway through the first quarter of a scoreless game with rival Webster Groves.

“I wasn’t expecting him to come back, honestly,” Claggett said.

Walker returned in the second quarter and never sat on the bench again as he led the Junior Billikens to a 55-43 win over the Statesmen at the Danis Field House on the campus of St. Louis U. High.

SLUH (11-6) has won four in a row and seven of its last eight games. The Jr. Billikens knocked off Metro Catholic Conference rival CBC Friday to snap an eight-game skid to the Cadets. They then turned around and beat Webster Groves (6-10) for the second consecutive year.

SLUH has started to find a rhythm as crunch-time approaches.

“Everything is starting in practice,” Walker said. “We’re going hard, getting after each other and getting real focused and locked in for the games. It’s showing on the court and showing in games.”

The Jr. Billikens showed what a menace they can be defensively as they stifled the Statesmen. SLUH took its first lead of the game at 11-8 when senior forward Zach Ortwerth buried a 3-pointer from the left wing at the first-quarter buzzer. SLUH wouldn’t trail again the rest of the game.

It led 23-16 at the end of the second quarter as Webster Groves found nothing easy in transition or its half-court offense.

“They’re always very disciplined defensively,” Webster Groves coach Justin Mathes said. “They’re going to have a really good scout for you and they’re going to execute it well. I thought it took us a long time to counter that.”

When Walker did step off the court the rest of the Jr. Billikens had to step up and one that did was junior forward Jalen Jones. The 6-foot-4 Jones scored four of his 13 points in the first quarter and finished with three steals.

“AJ got hurt and that’s one of our key components of our team,” Jones said. “We came back, we all came together as a team and pulled out the win.”

An Iowa football recruit, Ortwerth scored 13 points, grabbed three rebounds and blocked two shots. He took the brunt of guarding Webster Groves’ junior swingman Iziah Purvey who’s a vital piece of the Statesmen’s offense. He’s their leading scorer, an excellent passer and is capable of crashing the glass for putbacks. Purvey led the Statesmen with 12 points, six rebounds, two assists and a steal but he had to work for everything he got.

“One thing with Purvey we wanted to make him earn it,” Claggett said. “On the other end we wanted to attack him. Really good offensive players you want to go at them offensively so they don’t rest on one end of the floor and kill you on the other. We made a concerted effort to do that.”

Webster Groves came out of halftime more aggressive on both ends and was rewarded. The Statesmen got a pair of 3-pointers from senior guard RJ Trevino, the second of which cut SLUH’s lead to 30-28 with 4 minutes and 9 seconds to play in the third. Trevino had 11 points, four rebounds, two steals and a block.

But Jones went the other way and knocked down a jumper. Walker then scored on back-to-back possession with mid-range jumpers and buried two free throws to push SLUH’s lead to 38-30 headed into the fourth quarter.

It was more of the same in the fourth as the Statesmen would creep closer only for the Junior Billikens to pump their lead back up.

“We talk about how every possession in this game is a war,” Mathes said. “I think it took us too long to adjust to that. When we found our rhythm offensively we couldn’t get stops defensively.”

Webster Groves senior point guard CJ Lang scored 10 points and had four assists and three steals. SLUH junior guard Charlie Isom-McCall had 11 points and seven rebounds.

Walker finished with six points, six rebounds, two assists, four steals and blocked a shot. It was an impressive display as the spry Walker skied high for rebounds and pushed the Jr. Billikens in transition.

“It feels good to jump up there with the bigs,” Walker said with a smile.

It may have felt good Tuesday night but Claggett was expecting Walker to be sore on Wednesday as his balking hamstring makes its presence felt. Still, there wasn’t a chance Walker was going to sit on the bench if he was able to make an impact on the court.

“I was in a little pain to be honest but I had to fight through it for my guys,” Walker said.

Webster Groves continues to fight through what has been a tough season. The reigning Class 5 champions, the Statesmen slogged through a rough December only for January to come and take losses to archrival Kirkwood and SLUH. This winter has tested Webster Groves at every turn.

“It’s tough,” Mathes said. “Those (rivalry losses) are the ones you remember the rest of your life as a high school kid, but their legacy is not completely written and they have a chance to flip that but there’s some tough chapters in there right now.”