St. Paul Flyers push way to wins

After another late start for the fifth consecutive season, fans of the St. Paul Flyers boys' basketball team that showed up to the convocation center last weekend were treated to a style of basketball that hadn't been seen for years by a St. Paul team.

"I thought having that extra week, we had everything in the week before, which is a first in 10 years for us," St. Paul head coach Mike Smith said.

In a 61-55 win over Crestview and a 47-29 win over Fremont St. Joseph, the Flyers were seen pushing the ball up and down the floor along with playing some full court pressure defense, invoking memories of a decade ago when the team won three straight Firelands Conference titles, district crowns and a regional championship from 1996 to 98.

"I can remember someone a couple years ago said we didn't look to run, but that's not the case," Smith said. "You base it on your personnel, I mean, you have to have the horses to do that and I'm a big advocate of wanting people to take tough shots.

"We're still playing it someone what safe, but attacking people more. If you look in that stretch 10 years ago we averaged somewhere in the 70's for points per game, but those team had great, great point guards that could score and put some pressure on some people. There is a ton of stuff in our playbook, we have 60 sets in our offense, not that we run them every year."

After opening the season with the two home victories, the Flyers are now facing a double FC road weekend with trips to New London (2-1) Friday and Western Reserve (0-3) Saturday, two venues that the team has struggled to win at in recent years.

"It kind of sets up good because both teams are very similar with their offense," Smith said. "But the difference between the two probably is New London has (Seth) Howard inside and Western Reserve has kind of been doing that by committee.

"But both play a similar style with offenses they run and defensively they try to pressure a little bit, which makes the weekend good with the similarities. It's our first time on the road, and we want to continue to work and try and get two more victories under our belts. I'm really optimistic with this team, it has been a lot of fun so far."

Smith talked about the 'difference' fans might be noticing that is nothing new to the team itself.

"Without having to add anything the past couple weeks, our kids were pretty comfortable," he said. "We have defended very well, especially this early, we played the style we wanted to play, which was to extend defenses and press some.

"Really we're just putting pressure on other teams by using our athletes and taking our half court defense to full court. Over the weekend we only gave up two layups to full court pressure and our defensive field goal percentage was 30 percent."

Smith said nobody stood out for his team in the two wins, but everyone performed as expected.

"Offensively we were pretty smooth in what we did and I think everyone played the way I thought they would," he said. "But Steve (Mutchler) had a great weekend, he's scoring for us like we needed and is averaging 16 rebounds a game and the bench did what I thought they'd do.

"It is going to take some time, but this team can shoot the ball and this is probably the best defense we've played in a long, long time."