It was the best basketball game in the best basketball environment that the couple hundred people on hand might ever see.
And in the end, the Caissons came thisclose to pulling the major upset.
Wake Forest signee Codi Miller-McIntyre hit a three with 13.5 seconds left to send the game to overtime, a John Burke three with 23.9 seconds left broke a 117-all tie, and Hargrave Military Academy held on for a 122-119 win over Fishburne Thursday night.
Hargrave (28-0) led 57-48 at the half and pushed the lead to 75-62 with 14:08 to go on a three-point play by Ryan Taylor. A Devin Call three-pointer at the 9:18 mark got the game back into single digits at 89-82, and FMS kept chipping away, chipping away, chipping away.
“I was telling everybody, Don’t quit. Just stay in it. Even when we were down, I was like, Stay in the game. The game’s not over,” said Florida Atlantic signee Chris Bryant, who led a balanced Fishburne scoring attack with 22 points on the night.
A three by Winthrop signee Jackson Trapp brought FMS all the way back, knotting the score at 102-102 with 1:51 left.
Fishburne (17-6) took the lead for the first time in the game at 104-103 on a Spencer Parker (Bowling Green) dunk with 30 seconds left, and Matt Gorski (Illinois-Chicago) hit two free throws with 19 seconds left to extend the lead to 106-103.
Tigers’ coach A.W. Hamilton called a timeout and set up a play for Miller-McIntyre, who ran off a screen, got a sliver of daylight and drained the three from four feet behind the three-point line to tie the game at 106.
“We work through those kinds of situations all the time in practice. We just got lucky there and made a big three and sent it to overtime. It was great execution on my kids’ part. If that shot doesn’t go down, the game is over,” Hamilton said.
FMS coach Ed Huckaby called a timeout to set up the final play for the Caissons, which ran through Trapp, the point guard. Trapp worked a high screen and got into the lane and got off a left-handed runner that rolled off the rim with one second left.
Hargrave stormed ahead 113-108 with 3:30 left in the overtime period on a field goal by Miller-McIntyre. A pair of threes by Parker and Trapp put Fishburne ahead 114-113 with 3:03 to go.
A tip-dunk by Virginia Tech signee Montrez Harrell put Hargrave back on top 115-114 with 2:48 to go. A Trapp three with 2:00 to go made it 117-115 Fishburne.
Miller-McIntyre tied it at 117 with 1:34 to go, and Parker missed with 58 seconds left and Hargrave rebounded. Burke’s three put the Tigers ahead by three. Khalil Alford scored on a drive to the basket with 7.1 seconds left to cut the lead to one. Miller-McIntyre made two free throws with 5.6 seconds left to push the lead back to 122-119, and Trapp missed a tough running three at the buzzer to end it.
“We had a lot of opportunities. So did they. They knocked down some tough shots at the end, and I missed a couple that I could have made. That’s the way the game goes,” Trapp said.
“We’ll see them again. This was a hard-fought game. We respect them, they respect us. It went down to the wire, and they made a couple of extra plays and won the game. But we’ll see them again,” Bryant said.
Harrell led all scorers with 51 points. Miller-McIntyre had 32.
Trapp had 21 points and Parker had 17 for Fishburne.
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