McDONALD — Right before the biggest shot of the season for the McDonald Blue Devils coach Jimmy Franceschelli drew up a play with 4.7 seconds left in overtime and told senior guard Eli Street he’s going to make it.

The situation was that the Blue Devils trailed the Valley Christian Eagles, 56-54, in a Division IV district semifinal. No pressure, right?

They had surrendered a 50-39 lead with close to six minutes left and seemingly everything was going the way of Valley Christian.

Instead of disappearing into the night, Street drained a 30-foot shot to give McDonald the unlikeliest of victories after all that had transpired in the final 10 minutes as they escaped 57-56.

“At first there’s what four or five seconds left and coach says Eli get in the corner, you’re gonna make the shot,” Street said. “Yeah, I’m like, ‘Coach, yeah I’ll make the shot.’ That was right after I had missed one at the top of the key. Miles gets the ball and I’m ready. They foul him. It’s closer. Three seconds left.

“Coach says to stick with the play. Miles gets the ball and I don’t know how he’s gonna get it to me because there was the baseline, there’s the defender, and he has just a little gap. So I squeeze through, I come over. I grab it. As soon as I shot it, I knew it was in. I don’t know what it was, but I soon as I shot it. It was squeaky clean.”

Street’s four 3s were huge as he finished with 12 points. Miles Culp and Jake Portolese each added 15 and Dom Carkido finished with a 13 point, 12 rebound double-double.

After a 12-all first quarter, the Blue Devils (23-2) started to create some separation in the second quarter behind back-to-back 3s from Carkido to make it 23-14 with 3:26 left in the half.

Though, the Eagles (15-5) responded with some timely buckets from Joey Battista to get it back within four.

“We just told our guys to stick with what we were doing,” Franceschelli said. “The thing that they did differently tonight is they really controlled us offensively. They slowed us down and made it a close game there and that’s them preparing and being ready. We just didn’t shoot it very well tonight at the beginning of the game.”

Coming into the second half with a 25-21 lead, the Blue Devils pulled away again with a Culp bucket to make it 30-21.

The Eagles responded again to eat into the deficit, but McDonald had timely shots from Street to push out the lead to 45-35 after three.

“We knew coming in tonight we were gonna get their best effort,” Franceschelli said. “They’ve been playing great basketball. We expected a battle tonight. We really did. We got up twice there at 10 and they battled back. Kudos to them and Dolph (Carroll). They were so well prepared tonight for this. It was unbelievable and they deserve a ton of credit.”

With roughly six minutes left, McDonald was up 50-39 after a Portolese bucket.

Instead of going away, Valley Christian started doubling down and it worked as the Blue Devils got sloppy with the ball.

“We just did what we normally do,” Carroll said. “We didn’t change anything up. We started doubling a little bit more than what we had throughout the course of the game and tried to get some turnovers which worked to our advantage. The kids didn’t quit.”

That they didn’t, as the Eagles finished out regulation on a 13-2 run to send the game into overtime after Mark Revere and Portolese missed potential game winners.

“They really started to pressure us a little bit there and cause some turnovers that we don’t usually make,” Franceschelli said. “We had a breakdown there for about three four minutes. We got lucky to win.”

After Sekou Stanley’s free throws made it 56-54 with 36.5 seconds remaining, he had a chance to seal the game for Valley Christian but missed the first of a one-and-one with 5.3 seconds left. Carkido came down with the rebound on that shot with 4.7 seconds left. Stanley led the Eagles with 20 points.

“They have a great team,” Carroll said. “They have great shooters. We had a great game plan coming in. The kids executed almost to perfection. We did everything humanly possible to win. The kids were absolutely amazing.”

Still, it took a miraculous effort for the Blue Devils as they’ll meet the Warren John F. Kennedy Eagles Friday night at home.

“They realistically deserved to win the game tonight but Eli comes through in a clutch moment there,” Franceschelli said. “Those are the things that we hope carry us on further here. We got lucky to win. We’re thankful to be in this position, and get ready Friday night against JFK here.”