St. Paul holds off Danbury in thriller

Feb. 24—SHELBY — Michael Kirk can always tell.

When the St. Paul junior catches and shoots from the three-point line, he typically knows when he releases how good it looks.

In the biggest game of the season, Kirk's shot never looked better. Facing Danbury in a Division IV sectional championship game, Kirk made three huge 3-pointers and helped the Flyers close out a thrilling 45-44 win at Shelby High School.

The No. 7 seed in the Willard district, the Flyers (11-13) advance to Tuesday's district semifinal matchup with No. 1 Colonel Crawford (16-7) in a third meeting in 11 years between the two in that round.

"It felt great, amazing," Kirk said after he was 4-of-7 shooting with 11 points. "Coming off the bench and doing it for the team is a great feeling. I had some injuries and it's been hard to get in a flow this year, but it's good to be back — and good to help my team tonight."

In a game that saw the largest lead at five points — which lasted for all of 33 seconds — the Flyers were on the verge of falling behind a couple baskets multiple times in the first three minutes of the fourth quarter.

After Kirk put the Flyers up 37-35 on a 3 with 6:01 left, the Lakers' Tyler Harris answered with a triple of his own for a 38-37 Danbury lead.

Blake Barker then scored for the Lakers with 4:45 left to extend the lead to 40-37, but just 19 seconds later, Kirk made his third 3 to again tie the game with 4:26 left.

Danbury took the lead one more time on a basket inside by Landon Dunlap with 3:11 left. But from there, Kirk scored on a short jumper — then Nolan McCall buried a 3 from the left wing with 2:20 left to give St. Paul a 45-42 lead.

James Morrissey scored with 1:23 left to bring the Lakers within 45-44, then the game really tightened more than it already had.

The Flyers called a timeout with 45.5 seconds left, with both teams not close to the bonus with multiple fouls to give.

Barker was attempting the game-tying basket from the left block with 21 seconds left, but McCall was there for the block. Barker got his own rebound, but in the process, he had the ball stolen by St. Paul senior Ian Deeter.

The Flyers briefly considered a three-on-two fast break to the rim, but pulled the ball out and called their final timeout with six seconds remaining.

However, it was a near catastrophe as St. Paul was whistled for stepping on the baseline for a turnover while attempting to inbound the basketball.

Danbury then got its turn. However, the Flyers still had four fouls to give. The Lakers were immediately fouled with 4.3 seconds left. Attempting it a second time, the ball was briefly lost, but deflected off St. Paul out of bounds with just 2.2 seconds remaining.

Looking to inbound under the basket down a point, the Lakers attempted a bounce pass, but also stepped out of bounds with 1.1 seconds to go.

St. Paul then inbounded the basketball to Kirk, and time expired for the big win.

"Our defense was phenomenal," Kirk said. "This is the first time I've ever cut a net down, and it feels amazing."

St. Paul head coach Steve Minor said Kirk is often used in matchups, trying to get quick offense. But the junior forced his hand against the Lakers.

"This was a great matchup for Michael on both ends of the floor, so we were able to keep him in a lot longer than we normally do," Minor said. "We usually kind of steal one with him on offense, then get him out and rotate around.

"But he really stuck his nose in on both ends of the floor. I can't say enough about how big of a contributor he was tonight.

In the first half, the teams were essentially back-and-forth throughout. St. Paul led 6-3 on consecutive scores by Evan Wangler in the first quarter, but trailed 10-8 when Korey Frazee made a 3-pointer to grab the lead back.

The teams then exchanged scores, with Kirk coming off the bench to sink a right corner 3 with 4.1 seconds left to give the Flyers a 14-12 lead after one quarter.

After McCall gave St. Paul a 17-14 lead on a 3 at the 7:02 mark of the second, the Lakers responded with Landon Dunlap and Morrissey, the second a rebound putback, for a brief 18-17 lead at the 5:17 mark.

Brock Houck split a pair of free throws, then Brock Tice scored on a runner in the lane to give the Flyers the lead back at 20-18 with 3:30 left in the half.

The final three-plus minutes were then a struggle for both teams to not only convert shots, but hold onto the ball.

After Morrissey tied the game at 20 for the Lakers, the Flyers then again closed a quarter with a last-second shot as Frazee made a short baseline jumper with 8.9 seconds left to give St. Paul the 22-20 halftime lead.

The third quarter was also no different. The Flyers led by a 30-25 margin on back-to-back scores from Tice and McCall, but Harris and Barker made back-to-back 3s — and the Lakers had the lead right back.

"We told the guys, it's no secret we were going to turn it over, but let's try and win the rebounding battle and score more points than them — and see if that works out for us," Minor said.

"There were so many great plays, but I thought a huge one was the steal by Deeter at the end when it was almost a tie-up. That's how you need to be.

"That's a senior going after the ball wanting to keep this season going."

Danbury (13-11) got 15 points from Baker, while Harris added 13. Morrissey and Dunlap each scored eight.

For St. Paul, McCall had 12 points and five rebounds. Tice scored eight points with five rebounds, while Wangler had six points and eight rebounds.

"It's a great feeling," said Tice, who is the other senior with Deeter. "You just have to have confidence in yourself and your team that it will work out."

The game was tied eight times and had nine lead changes.

"It was stressful," Tice said. "You just have to know its an intense game and you have to stay with it. It was stressful, but we just had to stay composed to keep playing another week."

ST. PAUL (11-13)

Michael Kirk 4-0—11; Korey Frazee 3-0—7; Brock Tice 4-0—8; Nolan McCall 5-0—12; Evan Wangler 3-0—6; Brock Houck 0-1—1. TOTALS 19-1—45.

DANBURY (13-11)

Blake Barker 6-1—15; James Morrissey 4-0—8; Landon Dunlap 4-0—8; Tyler Harris 5-0—13. TOTALS 19-1—44.

St. Paul 14 8 10 13 — 45

Danbury 12 8 11 13 — 44

3-point FGs: (SP) Kirk 3, McCall 2, Frazee; (D) Harris 3, Barker 2.