Herndon Falls One Game Short of States

Trailing 58-51 with 1:21 left in Saturday’s Northern Region semifinal against T.C. Williams, Herndon appeared to have little hope.

Then Austin Hamilton made a twisting layup to cut the lead to five. A few trips later, trailing 61-55, Hamilton got an offensive rebound and put-back of his own, drawing a foul in the process. He made the free throw to bring the Hornets within three with 31.9 seconds left in the game.

Herndon immediately fouled T.C. point guard Tyler Driver on the inbounds, and he made 1-of-2 free throws. On the ensuing possession, Jonathan Beltran gave his man a nice head-fake to get him up in the air and jumped into him on a 3-point attempt to send him to the line with a chance to cut the lead to one. He made only the first free throw, giving T.C. some breathing room.

Again, the Titans made just one free throw, and Beltran made a driving layup to make the game 63-61 with 5.7 seconds left. After another 1-for-2 trip to the free-throw line for the Titans, Hamilton got a decent look at a three for the tie, but it came up short and the Titans escaped with a 64-61 victory, ending not only Herndon’s season, but the high school careers of Hamilton, Beltran and Raleigh McKenzie.

“[T.C.] is a great team, I can’t take anything away from them,” Hamilton said. “Our guys showed a lot of heart throughout the whole game and this season. I’m proud of them.”

Despite getting pounded on the glass, Herndon led most of the first half. A 10-1 run to close the first quarter gave the Hornets the lead, and Hamilton finished with 14 points in the first as the Titans constantly double-teamed him. The teams went into the locker room tied at 23.

Two Beltran threes to start the half gave Herndon a 29-24 lead. T.C. coach Julian King called a timeout to calm his guys down, and it worked. The Titans showed more patience offensively, and the shots near the hoop they missed in the first half started to fall. Beltran picked up his fourth foul with just more than five minutes to play in the quarter, and T.C. took advantage. The Titans outscored the Hornets 19-10 to close out the third, and never trailed the rest of the way.

“They got a couple loose balls and a couple easy put-backs, and we just had trouble scoring,” Herndon coach Chris Whelan said.

Hamilton willed his team back into the game in the fourth, scoring 12 of his game-high 32 points in the quarter to get his team back into it. Still, he’ll probably be thinking about the three he didn’t score at the buzzer.

Although they were one of the smaller teams in the region, Herndon went 23-3 this season, and won the Concorde District regular season and playoff championships. The leaders of the team were unanimous in the key to their success this season.

“They fight, they just never give up, they never stop fighting, they believe they’re invincible, which they have been all year,” Whelan said. “It’s a tribute to our captains and our seniors. The toughest kids I’ve ever seen.”

“It shows a lot of heart, we never gave up throughout the whole game,” Beltran said. “We were up, we came down and we got in foul trouble, but we never gave up.”

“We fight to the end,” Hamilton said. “Our guys showed so much heart. We’re fighters. That’s what got us here.”