Tim Dawson stepped to the free-throw line with 0.6 seconds remaining and his St. John's College Green Eagles trailing the North Park Collegiate Trojans 42-41.
Dawson, the Eagles' star guard, was in the one-and-one foul shooting situation meaning he had to make the first free throw to tie the score and earn the opportunity to shoot a second foul shot to win the game and spoil an unbelievable comeback by the Trojans.
The Brant County high school junior boys' basketball championship was on the line.
Each team went into the game with a victory under its belt in the best-of-three championship series.
"I just tried to tune out the crowd," Dawson would recall. "I knew those two shots summed up our whole season."
Dawson shrugged off the pressure of the situation and made both foul shots to give the Eagles a 43-42 victory.
It was a heartbreaking loss for the Trojans, who were down as many as 13 points in the fourth quarter. They climbed a mountain and got to the top when Vishal Brar, who was a one-man gang in the final four minutes, grabbed a loose ball under the St. John's basket and scored with five seconds remaining to give North Park a 42-41 lead.
The Eagles immediately inbounded the ball to Dawson, who started dribbling up the floor but he was tripped as he went between two North Park players.
"I thought it was over," Dawson admitted. "I was just going for a long shot and I got tripped. I thought, wow, I'm going to the line.
"I didn't let nerves or fear take over me. That's about it. I just shot the ball."
Dawson finished with 17 points. Cam Post got nine, Jake Brennan six and Adam Peters five.
Brar scored 16 for the Trojans. Cam Lumax and Brodie McIvor each scored eight points.
Brar scored North Park's final 11 points. The six-foot-two, grade-10 student got four of his points off offensive rebounds, three on an old-fashioned three-point play, two on recovering the loose ball near the end of the game and two more on free throws.
"I was starting to get on the offensive glass," Brar said of the Trojans' comeback. "And the whole team started to play defence and we were getting steals."
The Trojans appeared to out of the game when they trailed 15-6 at the end of the first quarter, 24-10 at the half and 33-21 after three quarters.
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