WICHITA – This was more what Drake DeBaun and Shawnee Mission South had in mind.
 
A year and a day after the Raiders came to Koch Arena as the No. 1 seed and lost by one point in the Class 6A boys state quarterfinals to eighth-seeded Maize, they returned and blistered Wichita Heights 79-54 on Friday in the state semifinals with smiles and high-fives in endless supply.
 
The 6-foot-7 DeBaun, who missed that Maize game with a broken foot he sustained in the sub-state semifinals, scored 19 points and grabbed 10 rebounds against Heights, which fell victim to South’s diverse offense and scrambling defense.
 
The Raiders, again a top seed at 26-1, will play fellow Sunflower League member Olathe North on Saturday for the 6A championship. North, which fell to Shawnee Mission Northwest last year in its first title-game appearance, played its way back there with a surprisingly one-sided 62-44 semifinal win over another Sunflower League foe, Mill Valley.
 
“It was so much better because obviously I got to play instead of watch,” said DeBaun, whose powering moves to the basket resulted in several trips to the free-throw line, where he made 10 of 11. “I feel like I impact a game when I’m on the court, and I feel like I showed that tonight whether I was getting fouls, getting steals or just boxing out so me and my teammates could get rebounds.”
 

DeBaun was part of a wave of Raiders whose contributions proved too great for Heights to match. All five Shawnee Mission South starters reached double figures, with junior Conor Kerrigan adding his own double-double with a game-high 20 points and 13 rebounds.
 
Senior Kaiden Davis added 12 points and classmates Thomas Burns and Ben Allen each had 11. All five starters made at least one 3-pointer, with Kerrigan hitting 4 of 6 and Davis and Burns each making two.
 
The Raiders led just 4-2 more than four minutes into the game. But Kerrigan hit his first 3-pointer and they were off and running. South led 19-7 after the first quarter and pushed the lead to 22 points in the second quarter before settling on a 41-26 halftime lead.
 
“They got to play a game in this arena before us,” said DeBaun, referring to the Raiders playing their quarterfinal against Manhattan at Kansas City Kansas Community College. “This was our first game here, my first game here.
 
“I feel like the first half of the first quarter kind of just took us a little bit to get a feel for the arena and calm our nerves. But after that I felt like we got everything under control.”
 
Heights, playing in the state semifinals for the fifth consecutive year, got 22 points from Jordan Timmons and 13 from Jalilhn Timmons. But the Falcons shot just 30.5% and committed 17 turnovers.
 
Both of those factors weighed in on a fourth-quarter run by South that emphatically launched them into the final. After Heights cut its deficit to 57-44 with 7:32 remaining, the Raiders came out of a timeout and went on a 20-2 run for their biggest lead of the game, 77-46, on Burns’ drive to the basket with 2:49 to play.
 
South savored the experience it didn’t have last year in the 49-48 loss to Maize. Players ran over to the Raider student section and celebrated, then retreated to the locker room, where a parade of South coach Brett McFall’s young children and their cousins entered to join the joyous scene.
 
“Our guys just didn’t feel like we showed what we could do here after begin 21-1 last year,” McFall said. “They’ve been on a mission from Day 1 and it’s been a joy to coach them.”
 
Next up is a rematch with Olathe North. Shawnee Mission South got one of its signature victories this season against the Falcons on Feb. 3, winning on the road 55-54 on Allen’s jumper with 24 seconds to play.
 
“I don’t really care who wins. We’re going to be ready,” DeBaun said prior to North’s semifinal victory over Mill Valley. “We’ve played both of them and we know what to expect. But we’re only worried about ourselves and what the Raiders are doing.”
 

OLATHE NORTH 62, MILL VALLEY 44 – Whatever the motivation was for Olathe North to get back to the 6A championship game, the Falcons ran it through 6-foot-11 center Teke Deng on Friday against Mill Valley.
 
And they couldn’t have made a better choice.
 
Deng scored 25 points, grabbed 17 rebounds and blocked six shots as North avenged a three-point loss on its senior night to Mill Valley with relative ease. The Jaguars had been particularly strong in close games down the stretch, but never got a chance to show it Friday, falling behind by 12 points in the first quarter and trailing 35-21 at halftime.
 
“What helped us tonight is obviously we established the paint early and often,” Olathe North coach Adam Olerich said. “Our big guy came to play.”
 
Deng scored 19 of the Falcons’ 21 points in the first quarter, establishing a presence that haunted Mill Valley throughout. The Jaguars tried different defensive options on Deng, but his passing was equally effective in freeing up teammates.
 
“All my seniors had a high expectation for me and so did Coach O,” Deng said. “It feels great to reach it.”
 
Deng’s 11-of-15 shooting helped the Falcons fire at a 54% clip for the game (27 of 50). That contrasted with Mill Valley’s 31% on 16-of-51 shooting. The Jaguars hit just 4 of 20 3-point shots.
 
Senior Reece Riedel, who made a key 3-pointer in Mill Valley’s 61-58 victory over Olathe North on Feb. 24, was the lone Jaguar in double figures with 14 points. But he went 0 of 4 from 3-point range and 4 of 11 from the free-throw line.
 

Max Galindo joined Deng in double figures with 11 points for North, including a four-point play early in the fourth quarter that stretched the Falcons’ lead to 55-33. Galindo added another 3 in the quarter as North continued to flourish. Olerich turned to his reserves with the Falcons up 62-39.
 
Even with an ‘A’ game, Mill Valley would have been severely tested to overcome Olathe North and its big man on Friday.
 
“He’s rapidly progressing, almost by the day, by the week,” Olerich said. “He’s a better player today than he was two weeks ago, and I think he continues to ascend.”
 
 
CLASS 6A BOYS SEMIFINALS
 
SHAWNEE MISSION SOUTH 79, WICHITA HEIGHTS 54
 
Wichita Heights … 7 … 19 … 15 … 13 … – … 54
Shawnee Mission South … 19 … 22 … 14 … 24 … – … 79
 
Wichita Heights (20-6) – Walker 1-5 0-0 2, Jo. Timmons 8-19 3-3 22, Ja. Timmons 5-19 1-1 13, Hadley 1-4 2-2 4, Phillips 2-7 0-0 5, Merriweather 0-3 0-0 0, Hall 0-0 0-2 0, Bodney 0-0 0-0 0, Rogers 0-0 2-2 2, Gilkey 0-0 0-0 0, Hall Jr. 0-0 2-2 2, Maze 1-2 2-2 4. Totals 18-59 13-16 54.
 
Shawnee Mission South (26-1) – Davis 4-7 2-2 12, Burns 4-5 1-2 11, DeBaun 4-12 10-11 19, Allen 5-14 0-0 11, Kerrigan 6-13 4-4 20, McKenna 1-1 2-3 4, Garcia 1-3 0-0 2, Minnick 0-1 0-0 0, Black 0-0 0-0 0, Flint 0-1 0-0 0, Jansen 0-0 0-0 0, Thomson 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 25-57 19-22 79.
 
3-point goals – Wichita Heights 5-17 (Jo. Timmons 3-5, Ja. Timmons 2-6, Walker 0-1, Hadley 0-1, Maze 0-1, Merriweather 0-3); Shawnee Mission South 10-25 (Kerrigan 4-6, Burns 2-3, Davis 2-4, DeBaun 1-3, Allen 1-7, Garcia 0-1, Minnick 0-1). Rebounds – Wichita Heights 36 (Phillips 15); Shawnee Mission South 39 (Kerrigan 13). Assists – Wichita Heights 5 (Ja. Timmons 3); Shawnee Mission South 14 (Allen 4). Turnovers – Wichita Heights 17, Shawnee Mission South 10. Total fouls – Wichita Heights 19, Shawnee Mission South 13. Fouled out – Wichita Heights: Hadley.
 
OLATHE NORTH 62, MILL VALLEY 44
 
Olathe North … 21 … 14 … 16 … 11 … – … 62
Mill Valley … 9 … 12 … 10 … 13 … – … 44
 
Olathe North (23-4) – Ju. Roland 4-5 0-0 9, Simmons 2-4 0-2 4, Galindo 4-8 1-1 11, Love 4-9 0-2 8, Deng 11-15 3-9 25, Cooper 1-2 1-2 3, Jo. Roland 1-3 0-0 2, Scroggins 0-0 0-0 0, Ngugi 0-2 0-0 0, Martin 0-2 0-0 0, Williams 0-0 0-0 0, Bakhautdinov 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 27-50 5-16 62.
 
Mill Valley (23-4) – Carter 2-10 0-0 5,  Riedel 5-14 4-11 14, Carpenter 1-7 0-0 2, Larson 2-6 0-0 5, Everhart 3-5 2-4 8, Henderson 0-2 0-0 0, A. Davis 2-4 0-0 5, D. Davis 0-1 2-2 2, Clark 0-1 0-0 0, Kuchnyka 1-1 0-0 3, Bullard 0-0 0-0 0, Zambo 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 16-51 8-17 44.
 
3-point goals – Olathe North 3-14 (Galindo 2-6, Roland 1-2, Deng 0-1, Martin 0-1, Jo. Roland 0-2, Ngugi 0-2); Mill Valley 4-20 (A. Davis 1-1, Kuchynka 1-1, Larson 1-5, Carter 1-7, Carpenter 0-1, D. Davis 0-1, Riedel 0-4). Rebounds – Olathe North 34 (Deng 17); Mill Valley 33 (Riedel 6). Assists – Olathe North 18 (Simmons 8); Mill Valley 9 (Riedel 6). Turnovers – Olathe North 5, Mill Valley 8. Total fouls – Olathe North 21, Mill Valley 15. Fouled out – None.