Williams Follow Up Shot Wins It
By Mike Ready
LONG BRANCH – With just over six and a half minutes to play in the game, Long Branch was cruising along with a comfortable eight-point lead, 36-28, in Saturday’s third game out-of- four in the Boardwalk Showcase at Long Branch High School.
Find out what's happening in Long Branch-Eatontownfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
That’s when things got interesting, as Lakewood then outscored the Green Wave 20-12 in the next four minutes to tie the game 48-48 with 2:30 to play in the contest.
Sophomore Sean Barksdale came off the bench to score 11 points and senior forward Fejon Sutton added five during Lakewood’s furious comeback. Barksdale hit three three-point shots and made two clutch free throws while Sutton hit a big three to ignite the Piners. Senior forward Ben Watson’s put- back shot tied the game at 48.
Find out what's happening in Long Branch-Eatontownfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
After a Long Branch backcourt violation at 1:37 gave the ball back to Lakewood, the Piners held the ball looking for the last shot. While trying to get the ball inside to Watson the ball was knocked out of bounds by Long Branch and on Lakewood’s inbound pass, Terrell Cox fouled the Piners Maurice Diawara, putting him at the line for two shots.
After air-balling the first of two free throws, Diawara got nothing but net to put the Piners up by one, 49-48 with 2.6 seconds remaining.
Without hesitation, senior captain Terrel Cox lobbed a perfect full-court pass to senior forward My’Son Pennington streaking towards the basket. Pennington’s shot was blocked by Amir Tyler and Diawara, seemingly ending the game, but Deon Williams alertly grabbed the loose ball for the follow up and put it in for the winning basket as the buzzer sounded.
Williams, an All-Class B North selection at running back this season, was deservedly mobbed by his teammates and fans who rushed the court after his heroic shot, but this truly was a team victory. After giving up the big lead and faced with an almost impossible task at games end,they never stopped playing hard, their focus never faltered and they pulled off the miracle win.
“We never doubted ourselves and never felt like underdogs coming into the game,” Williams said. “We knew we could compete with them, we have a good team with a lot of experience from last year. We never give up until the buzzer sounds; I learned that from playing football. We already had the play called if they took the lead, so we were ready when they made the shot. It happened so fast, I just reacted, I didn’t know if it went in with time or not.”
Lakewood led at the half, 21-18, after Long Branch was held to just six second quarter points. Cox and Williams each had five points in the half with Cox grabbing three rebounds and Williams four. Pennington hauled in six boards, blocked two shots and had a steal in the first half alone.
Dan Niblack led the Piners with eight first half points while Watson led with five rebounds.
Long Branch shot a dismal 28.6 percent from the field in the first half while Lakewood was not much better at 34.8 percent.
Cox’s three-point play three seconds into the second half was the beginning of a tremendous second half for Cox, who shot four-for-five from the field and four-for-five from the line. He finished with a game high 17 points along with four rebounds (two offensive), two assists, and two steals and was named the game’s Most Valuable Player.
Long Branch shot 45.5 percent from the field in the second half on 10-for-22 shooting, a dramatic improvement over the first half.
Williams ended up scoring 12 points and grabbed seven boards, while Pennington finished with six points, eight rebounds and two steals. Senior guard Ken Barrow was instrumental in scoring eight points with two boards.
Niblock led Lakewood with 13 points while Barksdale finished with 11 points. Both Watson and Diawara pulled down eight rebounds. Diawara also had two steals and Watson scored six points.
“This was definitely a statement game for us,” head coach Stan Mooney said. “The guys worked hard all summer, we asked them to come out and play with intensity today and they did just that. We’ve been in this position before and we have pretty much the same crew as last year, so our experience helped. We told them to just keep playing hard and at the end, you saw how they kept playing. The win says a lot about this team and we hope we can build on it.”
