De Soto ? The Wildcats’ standout girls basketball player had the flu, and De Soto’s coach yelled until he was blue.

Somehow, though, the Wildcats squeaked out a 39-36 Class 4A sub-state victory over Bonner Springs on Tuesday at DHS.

“Mentally, we just weren’t in the ballgame at all at the start of the second half,” said De Soto coach Dwight Spencer, who gave his best Bobby Knight impersonation early in the second half when he reminded his squad at the top of his lungs that Tuesday’s game could have been its last one this season.

The Wildcats quickly took notice. After letting a 16-12 halftime advantage slip away early in the third thanks to three straight Braves three-pointers, De Soto senior Amy Petty’s jumper closed the Wildcats’ deficit to 32-31 with 4:26 left in the fourth.

“Coach was pretty upset, but we’ve actually seen him do that before. Still, it motivated us to see how much that he wanted it for us,” said Petty, who scored a game-high 21 points despite battling flulike symptoms. “We got pretty pumped up there, and we just weren’t ready for this to be our last game.”

Sophomore Jackie Goleman made sure it wasn’t.

The 5-foot-11 sophomore’s rebound and turnaround with :45 seconds left gave De Soto a 37-36 advantage, then Petty padded the lead thanks to two free throws with 22 seconds left.

Bonner had a final opportunity to tie, but freshman Kelsey Stanbrough — who already had tallied a team-best 20 points, and on the season had connected on two buzzer-beaters that led to victories — misfired from the top of the key.

“We’re definitely excited to get out of here with the win,” Spencer said.

“But we’ll have to play a lot better on Friday.”

De Soto will play Kansas City Sumner on Friday at Basehor-Linwood High.