DES MOINES — In his own words, Jakob Koopman felt like he let his teammates down last year at the state tournament.

Koopman, dealing with a knee injury he sustained in a substate final win over Bishop Garrigan, was limited to just a handful of minutes as St. Edmond fell to eventual state champion Madrid in the 2025 semifinals.

This time around, there was a different obstacle standing in front of Koopman and the Gaels as they tried to reach the Class 1A title game here Thursday inside Casey’s Center.

But the Gael senior met that challenge head-on.

Koopman held Burlington Notre Dame star Shay Stephens, a Western Illinois commit, to 18 hard-earned points on 5 of 19 shooting as top-ranked and No. 1 seed St. Edmond rolled, 74-55.

Oh, and he also had his own double-double, scoring 10 points with 10 rebounds.

“I was playing for my best friends,” Koopman said. “I’ve played with those guys my whole life and I just really wanted to see them succeed, so I was willing to do whatever I had to do.”

That included emptying his own gas tank to slown Stephens, who had scored 26 points in the quarterfinals.

Stephens did not record a made field goal until there were just over two minutes left in the opening half. He had just six points at the break as St. Edmond led, 31-28.

“(Stephens) was running all over the place and I was chasing him,” Koopman said. “I knew I just had to keep up. I was exhausted (at halftime), but I wasn’t playing for just myself. I was playing for my teammates.”

That semifinal round loss last year served as a motivator for Koopman, who sports a full brace since sustaining the injury. He also suffered a knee injury at the end of his freshman football campaign that forced him to miss his entire basketball campaign.

“It didn’t feel good last year,” he said. “I felt like I let everybody down in the second (state) game (especially) and I just really, really tried to play my best (Thursday).”

The pressure to slow Stephens started before the game tipped, as fellow Gael senior Jack McElroy relayed some overheard comments to Koopman.

“Jack came back to me as I was sitting in the locker room and said some kids walked by and said Shay was giving us 40 (points),” Koopman said. “I was just like, alright, I guess we’ll have to live with that.

“But it turns out he didn’t.”