NORTON SHORES – The North Muskegon and Shelby boys basketball teams played two very close games against each other in the regular season.

The Norse won one game, the Tigers won the other, and the spread was six points each time.

But Wednesday’s rubber match between the teams was in the Division 3 districts, and there’s something about tournament time that brings out the best in the Norse.

North Muskegon, which came out hitting its shots and playing a tough zone defense, grabbed an early lead and never looked back, cruising to a surprisingly easy 50-40 victory over Shelby in the Division 3 semifinals at Western Michigan Christian High School.

North Muskegon, now 14-8, advances to Friday’s district championship game against the winner of the Holton-Hart semifinal, which was the second game at WMC on Tuesday.

The tournament is starting to play out like a rerun of last season for North Muskegon.

The Norse had a 6-8 regular season record last year, then came alive in the tournament and went on a four-game winning streak, capturing a district title and advancing all the way to the regional finals.

This year North Muskegon was 12-8 in the regular season, then turned things up a notch with a come-from-behind victory over Western Michigan Christian in the district opener on Monday before downing Shelby on Wednesday.

“You hope you do things right all year long, and hope at the end you are ready,” said North Muskegon Coach Chuck Rypstra. “We’re a good team, not a great team. We played two good teams, and we made a couple more plays. (Troy) McManus kept us in it early, and my big guy (Jason Bogue) did a nice job consistently throughout the game.

“We worked hard on being ready for what they try to do (offensively). Our assistant coach Jeff Cooke said you have to be patient on defense, and he’s right. You get antsy and try to do something, they know what to do if you overplay this or that, but if you remain patient, they have to make the play in front of you. We were able to kind of hold them back.”

The sparkplug for the Norse was their leading scorer, McManus, who had a team-high 20 points in the low-scoring contest.

His biggest contributions came in the second quarter, when he scored nine points to help the Norse preserve their early advantage, and in the fourth quarter, when he nailed five of six free throws to keep the Tigers from creeping back when the score got close again.

“We feel really good about how we prepared over the year,” McManus said. “We get after it every day in practice. It feels a lot like last year, and hopefully we can complete it.”

The Norse came out hot from the beginning, hitting their first four shots from the floor to take an early 9-2 lead midway through the first quarter. McManus started off the early run with a bucket, Jason Bogue tacked on a three-pointer and a layup, then McManus added a steal and layup.

North Muskegon led 11-4 after one quarter after hitting 6 of 9 shots. Shelby struggled early on, converting only 2 of 7 shots from the floor in the first quarter and coughing the ball up six times.

The Norse had an 11-9 advantage in the second quarter and led 21-13 at halftime, powered by McManus’ nine points. The third quarter was also pretty even, with North Muskegon again outscoring Shelby 11-9 and leading 33-22 heading into the fourth.

North Muskegon led by as many as 13 points in the fourth quarter. Shelby battled back to within seven points a few different times, powered by Joseph Hayes, who scored 14 of his game-high 24 points in the final quarter, but North Muskegon nailed down the win from the line, converting 4 of 6 free throws in the final 1:08 of the contest.

Overall the Norse hit 17 of 21 from the line in the game.

“It’s something we feel confident about – when we get to the line we know we can sink them,” McManus said.

Bogue finished with 11 points for the Norse while James Young and Brandon Rypstra each added six points.

Bishop Lee scored 11 points for Shelby, which finished the season with a 12-9 record.