Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart wins playoff game with incredible buzzer beater
Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart coach Pat Theisen thought he had drawn up a decent last-second play.
What he got instead was chaos ... and a spot in the MHSAA Class D quarterfinals.
With 0.8 seconds left, Sacred Heart and Fullerton-Middleton were tied at 47 in a regional-championship game in Big Rapids, and Theisen's team had the ball out of bounds after a Fulton turnover. He figured his team's best chance was for Brooks Hyble to throw a long lob pass toward the basket, where Kevin Gamble could grab it for a buzzer-beating layup.
That was the idea, anyway. Hyble's pass sailed over everyone's head and bounced off the backboard. It was heading out of bounds before Dustin Neyer grabbed it and flipped an ugly, desperate shot from well behind the 3-point line. The ball hit the front of the rim, slammed hard off the backboard, went back off the front rim and hung temptingly in the air for a second before falling through the net.
"The way it was set up, I was supposed to set a screen for Gamble right at the top of the key," Neyer told the Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun. "But Brooks threw it a little hard off the backboard and somehow it landed in my hands. At first I thought the clock had run out, but then I realized you have to touch it for the clock to start. So I just chucked it up and it went in."
The Sacred Heart fans stormed the floor to celebrate with the team, while the Fulton-Middleton players held their heads in their hands, one sinking to his haunches in disbelief before being knocked down by the crowd.
