Staley uses Kylan Evans' hot hand to run past Liberty to Class 6 District 8 title

By Chris Geinosky  

KANSAS CITY, MO – It did not take Kyan Evans long to realize this would be his, and more importantly his team’s, night.

Just a little over four minutes into the game, Evans had already drained four 3-pointers – all of them seemingly hitting nothing but net – sending the Staley faithful into a frenzy and giving the Falcons all the momentum in an eventual 56-40 Class 6 District 8 championship game victory Friday night against Liberty in front of a capacity crowd at Park Hill High School.

“It was just the heat of the moment,” said Evans, a junior guard receiving multiple NCAA Division I offers from programs throughout the Midwest. “I fed off the crowd, and I was feeling good. I just felt ready to play, and I was making shots.”

All of his shots. Evans didn’t miss until late in the first half on the way to delivering a game-high 23 points and leading Staley (25-4 overall record) to a third straight district championship.

When the Falcons converted five consecutive 3-pointers to open the game – four by Evans and the other by Asa Bridges – they quickly seized control of the game. Behind the sizzling shooting, Staley opened a 17-6 lead by the end of the first quarter.

Liberty (25-3) fought back by outscoring the Falcons 7-2 in a low-scoring second quarter to close the gap to 19-15 at halftime. Staley’s lone bucket of the frame came on Evans’ fastbreak layup to make the score 19-8 at the 5:48 mark, but the Blue Jays registered the final seven points of the first half to close the gap to 19-15 at the break.

“Honestly, I didn’t think we played a great first half. We just hit five 3s to start the game,” Staley head coach Chris Neff said. “In that second quarter, Liberty really buckled down defensively, and we didn’t help ourselves with poor passing and average decision making.”

That led to the Falcons changing the game plan at the intermission. Staley made a point to pass the ball into the paint and allow junior forward Kayden Fish to go to work. Fish scored 17 of his 19 points in the second half, most of them coming right at the rim or from the free-throw line.

“At halftime, the coaches told me that I needed to be more aggressive because no one could stop me,” said Fish, another potential DI prospect for Staley, who has received looks from a number of Missouri Valley Conference schools among others. “It just feels amazing right now to know we got this done. Liberty brought our season to an end last year, and we’ve had 365 days to think about it.”

Staley’s once-11-point lead was trimmed down to one, 19-18, when Luke Stubbs drilled a 3-pointer on the opening possession of the second half. However, the Blue Jays were never able to grab a lead due in large part to the inside work by Fish.

After managing only two points in the first half, Fish scored eight in the opening two and a half minutes of the third quarter. His work ignited a flashy 14-2 run that turned a tenuous 21-20 lead to a more comfortable 35-22 advantage midway through the third. Bridges beat the buzzer with a 10-foot jumper at the end of the period that put Staley up 43-28 heading to the final stanza.

“Coach Neff was really disappointed in the way we played in that second quarter, and he woke us up at halftime,” Evans said. “We have some dominant big guys inside, so we knew we had to feed them as much as we could in the second half and wear them out.”

Liberty was able to close within 10 points, 46-36, with 5:46 left in the game, but the Blue Jays just didn’t make enough shots late – or the whole game for that matter – to make a serious run at a comeback. The senior backcourt duo of Bennett Stirtz (team-high 15 points) and Stubbs (14) combined for 29 points, but their teammates combined for only 11 other points in the contest.

“We went empty too many times,” Liberty head coach Roger Stirtz said. “We didn’t have a good shooting night, and that happens sometimes. We knew we would need to hit 6, 7, 8, 9 3s to loosen up their defense, and we just couldn’t get shots to fall.”

As it turned out, Liberty made only a pair of 3-pointers in the game while Staley made seven, five by Evans alone. A team that averaged nearly 65 points per game for the season, the Blue Jays mustered a combined 75 in two games against Staley – two of Liberty’s three losses on the season. 

“You have to credit their defense,” said Bennett Stirtz, the coach’s son who had aspirations of taking Liberty back to the state final four for the second year in a row. “They played us tough. We didn’t get a lot of good looks, and nothing came easy.

“… We’ll be cheering for them in the playoffs. The farther they go, the better it is for Kansas City basketball. They’re a great team.”

Staley earns the right to play District 7 champion Blue Springs in the quarterfinal round of the Class 6 state playoffs at 7:45 p.m. Saturday, March 12, at Cable Dahmer Arena in Independence. The winner of that game advances to the MSHSAA Show-Me Showdown.

“I’m not really happy we have to wait eight days to play again, but we’ll be ready,” Coach Neff said. “But we definitely want to enjoy this one tonight. Liberty has a great senior-laden team with players that are going to play at the next level, and they went all the way to the state championship game last year. To win this one, it validates us as a program. It shows that we’re not just a one-hit wonder. Now we just have to take that next step.”