Blue Jays survive and advance to set up highly anticipated Liberty-Staley championship game

Bennett Stirtz scored 10 of the Blue Jays’ 13 fourth-quarter points, including the team’s last eight, to help secure the win.

By Chris Geinosky I Photo by Eric Langhorst

KANSAS CITY – Clinging to a two-point lead with 38 seconds to play in the game, Liberty called timeout to regroup for arguably the most important possession of the season. 

Inbounding the ball near its own bench, Liberty overloaded the top of the key. That gave Spencer Blaine the opportunity to throw a perfect inbounds pass to Bennett Stirtz at the left wing.  He immediately attacked the basket for a game-winning layup-and-one that propelled the Blue Jays to a wild 54-48 victory against a never-say-die North Kansas City team in a battle of state-ranked teams in the Class 6 District 8 semifinals Tuesday night at Park Hill High School.

“Survive and advance. That’s all it’s about this time of the season,” Liberty head coach Roger Stirtz said. “Our guys found a way to get it done.”

Perhaps it was the most perfect outcome for a game that was played on the first day of the month of March. But ironically enough, the winning play was one designed in the huddle during the final timeout – a play that had never even been run at practice.

Bennett Stirtz, the coach’s son, put the team on his back, scoring 10 of the Blue Jays’ 13 fourth-quarter points, including the team’s last eight of the game. But no points were bigger than ones in the final minute that gave his team a two-possession lead, 51-46, with 36 seconds to go.

“You just have to keep your composure, even though they go on a really good run in the loudest gym I’ve ever been in,” Bennett Stirtz explained. “You just have to move on to the next play. We were able to do that just enough when it matter most.”

The Blue Jays kept their composure just enough. Behind some clutch 3-point shooting, Liberty opened an 18-point lead, 39-21, with 3:20 left in the third quarter but watched it melt away over the next 10 game minutes.

Northtown trimmed the deficit to 12 before the end of the third quarter but still trailed by 13 points, 45-32, with 6:25 to play. That’s when the Hornets’ full-court pressure defense forced the Blue Jays into numerous mistakes and ignited a 10-0 run that made the score 45-42 with 3:22 left.

Bennett Stirtz stopped the bleeding with another driving layup-and-one, but when North Kansas City answered with a pair of layups, Liberty’s once-18-point advantage had dwindled to two, 48-46, with 1:35 left.

Northtown had a possession to tie the game, or potentially take its first lead since 10-9 at the end of the first quarter but turned it over on a traveling violation. That set the stage for the heroics by Bennett Stirtz, who iced the victory with a pair of free throws with 5.7 seconds left, the last of his game-high 21 points.

“We weren’t ourselves in the fourth quarter,” Roger Stirtz said. “We’re a program that takes pride in taking care of the basketball and trying to commit single-digit turnovers, but we turned it over a lot down the stretch, which is extremely uncharacteristic of us.”

The two teams played even through the first 10 minutes of the game as the score was 12-12 early in the second quarter. Liberty went on an 11-1 run from there, thanks in large part to the efforts of Karson Milbrandt, who was a difference maker at both ends of the court.

Leading 27-17 at halftime, the Blue Jays continued to extend the lead in the second half. Highlighted by a trio of 3-pointers – two from Blaine and one from Milbrandt – Liberty went on a 12-4 run that opened the 18-point cushion.

Bennett Stirtz (21), Milbrandt (15) and Blaine (8) combined for all but 10 of Liberty’s points in the contest. Iverson Neal (11) and Dallas Whitney (10) scored double figures for North Kansas City, which nearly pulled off an improbable comeback.

“I think we play better when we’re faced with some adversity,” Milbrandt said. “We just had to try to stay calm and keep our composure and do what we do best. I think we’ll learn from this. On to the next.”

Liberty (25-2) will meet Staley (24-4) in the Class 6 District 8 championship game at 7 p.m. Friday, March 4, at Park Hill High. The game will feature two of the best teams in Missouri and could have been a potential state final four matchup had it not been for the fact that the two schools are located 10 miles apart.

“It’s going to be the biggest game in the state of Missouri that night,” Staley head coach Chris Neff said. “We’ve been involved in a couple of those this season, so we may as well play in another.”

Staley punched its ticket to the championship game with a 55-27 blowout of Park Hill South in the other district semifinal game. The Falcons led wire-to-wire as they scored the first eight points of the game and controlled play until the final whistle.

Leading 13-9 after the first quarter, Staley went on a 13-0 run behind stellar half-court pressure defense to blow the game wide open. Of course, hitting nine 3-pointers in the game only helped the cause as well.

Senior Asa Bridges accounted for a trio of the trifectas as he finished with 13 points to match Kyan Evans for the team-high in the scoring column. Kayden Fish and Larry Parker added eight points each. Park Hill South mustered only 12 baskets in the game and was led by Cahmai Crosby’s 11 points.

“We emphasized the defensive end tonight, and that’s how we won the game,” Bridges said. “We’re going to have to do the same thing in the next game.” 

Staley handed Liberty its first loss of the season, 51-35, back on Jan. 21, when the teams met in the championship game of Liberty’s home tournament – the C.W. Stessman Invitational. However, there will be one major difference in the rematch as Liberty was not at full strength the first time when Milbrandt missed the game due to a college visit.

“We lost to them the first time so we’ve got a little chip on our shoulder,” Milbrandt said. “We know what to be prepared for this time. We’ll work on that in practice the next couple days and come out ready Friday. We just have to be tough. The tougher team is going to win.”