They weren’t supposed to be here. West Limestone’s season really should have ended more than two weeks ago with a loss to Deshler in the sub-regional round.

Who would have thought that a team trailing by 21 points in the fourth quarter of an elimination playoff game would be playing for the state championship less than three weeks later?

West Limestone players believed. The Wildcats made a miraculous comeback to defeat Deshler 62-60 and then have won their next three playoff games, taking the regional championship with a 58-54 win over Brooks and then defeating Booker T. Washington 50-48 in the state semifinal Tuesday.

West (21-13) will take on Talladega (25-8) in the state championship game at 5:45 p.m. today at Birmingham’s Legacy Arena at the BJCC.

“We were supposed to be finished that night after we were down 21 points in the fourth quarter,” West Limestone coach Justin Taylor said. “You look back to Feb. 12 at Deshler in the fourth quarter, and nobody would think we’d still be playing basketball on March 1. Since that comeback at Deshler, we’ve just been riding a wave of momentum.”

That fourth-quarter comeback set the tone for West Limestone’s postseason, and Taylor said it freed his players up to play without pressure.

“We’re just having a lot of fun and playing loose,” Taylor said. “We’re playing with house money and enjoying it. There’s no pressure on us now. Now, we just get to play in the last basketball game of the season.”

West Limestone’s 13 losses are the third most of any team playing in Birmingham this week — boys or girls — but Taylor said that is by design. The Wildcats played a tough regular-season schedule to prepare them for the postseason, and that stretch of tough games made his players better.

“There’s a lot of teams sitting at home right now with 28-3 records, so I don’t worry about our record,” Taylor said. “A lot of the games we lost were to really good teams. We played some teams ranked in the top 10 in Class 7A, and a lot of the teams around here are really good, too. Athens had a good team, Tanner and East Limestone were really good. We played against good teams almost every night.”

Taylor said the biggest different in the Wildcats from the beginning of the season to now is on the defensive side of the ball.

“At the beginning of the year, if we had to guard a team for 30 seconds to keep them from scoring, we didn’t have a chance,” Taylor said. “They’ve made more of a commitment to being disciplined for however long the possession takes. And the biggest thing is we’ve had some guys step up and make plays. We’ve become more solid on defense, but we’ve also had kids step up and make a play when you need it. That’s not something you can teach, it’s something they just do.”

Another key to West Limestone’s postseason success is the emergence of River Helms as an offensive and defensive presence inside.

The sophomore has two consecutive double-doubles, racking up 14 points and 10 rebounds against Brooks in the Northwest Regional final, and then 16 points and 11 boards against Booker T. Washington Tuesday.

“They haven’t been able to guard him, and on the flip side, he can pretty much guard anybody we’ve played,” Taylor said. “Booker T. Washington had a really good big man (Martez Jones), and River didn’t shut him down by any means, but he kept him from winning the game for them. Anytime we’ve needed a play in the past couple of weeks, River has made it.”

West faces one final hurdle in its quest for a state championship in the Talladega Tigers. Talladega advanced to the title game after defeating Hillcrest-Evergreen 69-58 in Tuesday’s semifinal.

“They’ll put a lot of pressure on defense,” Taylor said. “They’ve got some strong, athletic guys and they are relentless on the offensive glass. But it’s the kind of team you expect to play when you get here. There’s no bad teams playing the last game of the year. It will take all we’ve got to beat them, but it will take all they’ve got to beat us.”

With all the Wildcats have gone through in the past three weeks, from a huge comeback against Deshler to a last-second win against Booker T. Washington, Taylor wouldn’t bet against his players coming up big one more time.

“There’s just something special about this team,” he said. “On really good teams, one plus one has to equal more than two, and that’s the way it is with this group. We’re a lot better than the sum of our parts.”