St. Paul upsets Mansfield Christian in OHSAA boys basketball sectional semifinal
SHELBY — Losing early in the postseason wasn't what Mansfield Christian coach Cary Craner had in mind for his much-improved team this season.
But that's exactly what transpired Wednesday night at Shelby High School, where Mansfield Christian's 53-43 loss to St. Paul in a Division IV sectional semifinal ended the Flames' season sooner than expected.
"You know it's a tough one because I thought we had a chance to make a little run," Craner said disappointedly after the loss.
St. Paul advanced to play Lakeside Danbury in a sectional final at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
Both the No. 4 seed Mansfield Christian (15-8) and No. 7 seed St. Paul (9-13) came out clicking offensively, but it was the Flyers who did most of the damage on that end of the floor. St. Paul executed its offense in a highly precise manner against Mansfield Christian's man-to-man coverage by beating the Flames constantly on backdoor cuts.
Flyers players made hard cuts backdoor near the baseline, off dribble drives and off backscreens that led to points off layups throughout the majority of the first half. Whether it was drives up the middle or scoring on off-ball movement, Ian Deeter (seven points), Korey Frazee (18), Brock Tice (nine) and Nolan McCall (four) had their way with a Flames defense that just couldn't keep up.
The Flyers led by as many as 13 points before taking a 30-21 halftime advantage.
Craner wasn't pleased with his team's play on the defensive side.
"Difficult when you don't play defense. We were flat on defense the whole first half," he said. "Didn't have the rotations right. They weren't hard to get right, and we weren't doing it. We challenged them at halftime. They just showed up really flat tonight. It's win or go home. Gotta play better as a team. Gotta fight through the screens. You gotta box out. We didn't box out. That killed us. We didn't do a lot right on defense."
St. Paul also seemed like the more aggressive team, too, getting to offensive rebounds quicker and was a step ahead of the Flames. The Flyers didn't do a bad job defensively against Flames' go-to scorer Amarr Davis (17 points) either, as they at times cut off his driving lanes and doubled effectively when he received the ball in the mid-post. You could tell the Flyers did their homework and made Davis work for his buckets.
After trailing by as many as 12 points in the second half, the Flames did creep back into it. Timely 3s by Davis Wushinske and Connor Loose in the third quarter cut the Flyers' lead to three points, but even when the Flames installed their full-court press it really didn't phase the Flyers.
St. Paul's Deeter, Frazee and Tice handled it well and even scored off some accurate long passes by the 6-foot-4 McCall that put away the Flames for good to finalize the 10-point win.
Craner conceded St. Paul played with more assertiveness and was the more aggressive team.
"Tonight they were," Craner said. "They were the better team."
The early tournament loss ended a very strong turnaround year for the Flames, whose overall 15-8 record (second in the Mid-Buckeye Conference) topped their 11-12 record from last season.
"I challenged the underclassmen and I told them you have a really good group of guys in here," Craner said. "We should be very competitive next year in the Mid-Buckeye Conference. Their season for next year starts in about a month. Tough loss. We'll start getting back into the gym. We'll see who wants it and who doesn't."
jsimpson@gannett.com
Twitter: @JamesSimpsonII
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: St. Paul upsets Mansfield Christian in OHSAA sectional semifinal
