It's a shot Sarah Minutillo will probably remember for quite a while.
With the North Park Collegiate Trojans down by a pair with time dwindling and the St. John's College Green Eagles looking poised to take Game 1 of the Brant County junior girls basketball final, Minutillo saved her team's undefeated season in dramatic style.
Her three-pointer from the corner with 36 seconds remaining, gave the Trojans a 39-38 win and, most important, put them one win away from dethroning the defending champs.
"I was just hoping that would go in," Minutillo said. "I've been really consistent with my shots and I was thinking it would go in.
"It was just about getting open and finding the open man," she said. "I was thinking I might as well take it because it was open. I'm so glad it went in."
Minutillo's three-pointer capped a thrilling come-from-behind win that saw the Green Eagles lead most of the way. The Trojans led 12-7 after one quarter and 18-13 at the half before the Trojans were able to make some traction with there solid interior defence.
"They just told us to bring our game up," Minutillo said about the coach's halftime speech.
"We had to look to score, which was something we weren't doing in the first half. We started doing that and capitalizing on their mistakes."
And capitalizing on the Green Eagles' mistakes was how they finally took the lead with 5:18 left to play.
"We just didn't want it (being behind) to affect us," Minutillo said.
"We didn't want to crack under pressure. All we needed to do was take what was given to us and make the best of it."
Halle Sitarski and Gabrielle Marton led the second half comeback.
Sitarski led the third quarter surge with six of her 12 points, while Marton added five of her nine second half points in the fourth.
"This was such a great team effort," Sitarski said. "We did a lot of team building the last couple of days to get us ready for this. Games like this are a lot of fun and I'm just glad we won it."
Though the Green Eagles lost the game, Alex Girardi said there's nothing to be ashamed about.
"I know we worked our butts off and we'll be coming for them on Thursday," Girardi said.
"We thought we had that one in the bag. We played great as a team so we just have to keep going.
"We're totally good with how we played," she said.
"Even though we lost it was a great game. This was probably the best game we've played and to lose by only one point I'm fine with that."
Game 2 of the series is back at North Park Collegiate Thursday at 5:30 p.m.
NPC 39, SJC 38
NPC: Gabrielle Marton 16, Halle Sitarski 12, Brooke Cesar 6, Sarah Minutillo 5.
SJC: Jen Garner 8, Leah Coon 7, Alex Girardi 7, Rebecca Mckinnon 7, Lauren deMontmorency 6, Sam Dupont 2.
Retrieved From: http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/2012/11/06/three-pointer-lifts-junior-trojans-to-win
