Tigers outlast Paola in Sub-State final

Fort Scott's Mason Knopp (30) looks for a shot against Paola's Alex Wilson (32) during the second half of play at Paola Saturday night. Knopp led the Tigers with 19 points in their 64-58 victory in the Sub-State championship game. (Courtesy Brian Wade)

PAOLA -- A part of the game plan for Fort Scott High's boys in the Paola Class 4A-Division I Sub-State championship game here Saturday night was simple: Take care of the host Panthers' big guys.

And for most of the night, the top-seeded Tigers -- who have never lost to Paola in a post-season game (8-0) -- were able to do just that, mixing in a high-percentage 3-point shooting game and forcing the second-seeded Panthers (14-8) to try and win the game from the outside.

Fort Scott's plan worked for a 64-58 victory that will send the Tigers to a State tournament for the 15th time in school history.

Fort Scott's Kaleb DeLaTorre (3) drives by Paola's Jake Robison (11) during the first half of play at Paola Saturday night. DeLaTorre scored three 3-point goals and had 4 rebounds in the Tigers' victory in the Sub-State championship game. (Courtesy Brian Wade)

Paola has a pair of 6' 6" juniors, Mason McDow and Alex Wilson, who were each two inches taller than Fort Scott's tallest starter, Mason Knopp. But the Tigers (16-6) held Wilson to just four points while McDow had to go to the outside for most of his 12 points.

Meanwhile, Knopp was 6 of 9 from the field and led the Tigers with 19 points while Alex Fink was 6 for 8 for 17 points and led in rebounds with 5.

"Coach Del said Me and Alex were going to have the two big guys on us all night," Knopp said. "So they would hurt us on offense with their size, maybe. But then we could hurt them on their defense and blow by them. And when they collapsed, we kicked it out."

Knopp especially had that quick first step, which allowed him wide-open layup chances. More often than not, Knopp was able to score before the Panthers were able to get a help defender to rotate over.

Fink scored the game's first basket with a layup off the opening tip, won by Knopp. But his ability to step out and hit jumpers hurt the Panthers most of the time as the bigger defender wasn't used to coming out and defending 16-foot jump shots.

Paola only led once, tied the score two other times and then wasn't able to score again after getting within 2 with 1:10 to go. The Panthers had to resort to 3-point shooting to try to come back late in the game and it didn't work out, as the Tigers got the rebounds and then drew fouls as Paola needed to save valuable seconds.

The Panthers made just 7 of 27 shots from the 3-point line and went to the free-throw line just 6 times, making 3. Fort Scott, meanwhile, made two-thirds of their field-goal tries on the night on 20 of 30, and hit on 7 of 11 shots from triple territory.

They did have some issues at the free-throw line, going 17 of 28, which is 61 percent. At one point early in the fourth, the Tigers missed 5 of 8 charity tosses. But down the stretch when it mattered, they made 8 of 10 in the final 1:45.

"All of them felt good, but sometimes, they just don't go in," Fink said as he tried to explain the free-throw issues.

After Fink's opening basket, the Tigers got a layup from Knopp and a jumper from Fink to make it 6-0. Paola's first two baskets of the game were 3-pointers by Justin Criddle, whose brother, Justin, plays for Fort Scott Community College.

Kyle Wokutch scored consecutive baskets late in the period for Paola to tie the score for the first time at 17-17. Wyatt Reehl put the Tigers back ahead with a 3-pointer with two seconds to go.

Alex Slawson drove in for a basket to open the second quarter for Paola, then McDow hit a 3-pointer to give the Panthers their only lead of the game, 22-20.

Fort Scott responded with 12 of the next 14, making it 32-24 on Knopp's short jumper of a Jake Bradbury assist with 2:29 remaining. Six-four backup post Tanner Moala scored a layup, then McDow took a steal in for a dunk to bring the Panthers within 4 points with 57 seconds to go.

Criddle was hit with a technical foul for taunting a Tiger player while the ball was still in play. Bradbury made one of the two free throws with seven seconds left to extend Fort Scott's lead to 33-28.

Paola scored 6 straight points midway through the third to tie the score at 37-37 with 3:42 on the clock. However, Benjamin Labbe scored a layup from the right side of the key to spark 9-0 period-ending run and Fink took a lob pass from Chase Brown and laid it in to start the fourth, making it 48-37.

Paola started coming back, with consecutive 3-pointers from Slawson bringing the Panthers within 53-49 with 3:21 left.

Knopp made two free throws with 1:45 left to extend the Tiger lead to 58-51. But McDow stuck back a missed 3-point shot for Paola then hit a 3-point shot from the top of the key to bring the Panthers within 58-56 with 1:10 to go.

Kaleb DeLaTorre made two free throws with 48 seconds to go. Then Criddle missed a pair of 3-point shots and Slawson missed another one. The Tigers got the rebound on all three shots and made 4 of 6 free throws in the final 39 seconds.

"Paola's a good team," Bradbury said. "We just had to sit back and let them go through their runs and manage the storm, basically."

Criddle led Paola with 15 points while McDow added 12 and Slawson finished with 10. McDow finished 5 of 15 from the field, 2 of 9 from 3-point range.

Reehl was 3 of 3 from 3-point range as he finished with 9 points for the Tigers. Brown handed out 4 assists.

Because of the low number of missed shots, both teams had fewer than 25 rebounds, Paola winning the battle of the boards, 24-22.

Fort Scott has drawn the No. 6 seed at the Class 4A-Division I State Tournament, their first berth since the class was split into two divisions last season. They will face third-seeded Ottawa (20-2) at 4:45 Wednesday afternoon. If the Tigers win, they'll face the winner of the opening game between Wellington (12-10) and Basehor-Linwood (22-0) at 4:45 p.m. Friday.

PAOLA: Froeshle 0-1 3-6 3, Slawson 4-7 0-0 10, Criddle 6-14 0-0 15, Goodheart 0-0 0-0 0, J.Robison 0-1 0-0 0, Wokutch 4-6 0-0 8, Wilson 2-4 0-0 4, Moala 3-4 0-0 6, McDow 5-15 0-0 12. TOTALS: 24-52 3-6 58.

FORT SCOTT: DeLaTorre 2-4 2-2 8, Smith 0-0 0-0 0, Brown 1-1 0-0 3, Bradbury 1-3 3-6 6, Fink 6-8 5-9 17, Knopp 6-9 7-11 19, Reehl 3-3 0-0 9, Labbe 1-2 0-0 2. TOTALS: 20-30 17-28 64.

Fort Scott........ 20 13 13 18 -- 64

Three-point field goals: Paola 7-27 (Criddle 3--9, Slawson 2-5, McDow 2-9, Froeschle 0-1, J.Robison 0-1, Wokutch 0-2), Fort Scott 7-11 (Reehl 3-3, DeLaTorre 2-3, Brown 1-1, Bradbury 1-3, Fink 0-1).

Total fouls: Paola 21, Fort Scott 10. Fouled out: None. Technical foul: Criddle.

Rebounds: Paola 24 (Froeschle 5, McDow 5), Fort Scott 22 (Fink 5). Assists: Paola 10 (Criddle 4), Fort Scott 12 (Brown 4). Turnovers: Paola 6, Fort Scott 12. Steals: Paola 6 (McDow 2), Fort Scott 4 (4 with 1 each). Blocked shots: Paola 3 (Moala 2), Fort Scott 1 (DeLaTorre).