DES MOINES - Xavier Coach Tom Lilly polished his Hall of Fame credentials by winning his fourth state basketball title Saturday night.

Lilly ranks third in the 93-year history of girls basketball in Iowa with four state crowns. He trails only Scott DeJong of Ankeny (six titles) and co-head coaches Bob and Sharon Hanson of Dowling Catholic (five titles) on the all-time list with championships in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2013.

"That's pretty cool," Lilly acknowledged in his typically low-key manner.

"Should I walk off right now?," he joked. "Get on my horse? Ride off into the sunset and say enough is enough?

"If you're going to go out, you might as well go out on top?"

Lilly, 57, wasn't serious. He was already thinking about putting a new team together for next season after losing a special class of seniors.

Xavier topped Harlan, 53-52, for the Class 4A state title Saturday night.

Lilly has compiled a 280-95 record in 15 years at Xavier and has an overall mark of 468-197 in 28 years. He coached at Regis for 13 years before becoming the head coach at Xavier when the school opened for business.

Lilly never jumps up and down, but he was a proud man in Des Moines Saturday night. "We're going to be pretty happy on the way home," he said.

Lilly used his dry sense of humor to explain why he did not call a timeout after Harlan scored to take a 52-51 lead with 18 seconds left.

"We would have set something up and they would have muffed it and forgot all about how to run it as soon as they crossed the sideline marker," he claimed.

"We don't practice a lot of that stuff," he said. "We don't plan on being in a situation where we're going to be in a losing set of circumstances."

Instead, he trusted Kayla Armstrong and the gang to make the winning play on their own. Armstrong complied with the winning basket with nine seconds to go.

Armstrong is an elite soccer player who has signed to play at Drake University next year, but she wanted to stick with basketball and stay with her friends.

"I love Coach Lilly. The coaching staff is great," she said. "My teammates are great."

Armstrong and Sarah Dickes have played prominent roles on state championship teams in soccer and basketball. "They are both so good," said Dickes. "They are both so good and so different."

The Saints have won seven state soccer titles in a row and are expected to keep winning, fairly or unfairly. Basketball was different, but they found a way.

"We knew if we kept working hard and we believed in each other the entire time and as long as we came out with everything we have, we were going to get it," said Dickes. "We talked about heart in the locker room.

"We knew that heart would get us through that game."