By Alex Bouchard
CMS, Grade 6
Coach called timeout in the fourth quarter with ten seconds on the clock. He said,” Guys we are still in this. We are only down by two points and we have the ball out of bounds on the opposite baseline.” I was on the left bench at the time and one of our best players noticed his knee was bleeding. He looked at coach and said that he couldn’t play. Coach looked very disappointed. Coach was looking across the bench at the subs. He looked at me and said,” Alex you’re in.” I looked at him and said coach are you sure about this. And he nodded his head yes.
Coach said that our best player was going to get the ball for the final shot. Ok he said. Once the referee said “ Second Horn” we put our hands in the middle and said Vikings on three. As we were walking on the court the ref said red ball, meaning maroon. As our four man took the ball out of bounds he called out our press break. As I was setting a screen for the man getting the ball he got around and caught the ball. The clock started…10… and he started dribbling up the court…9… he crossed half court…8…he passed to the corner and when he caught it he tried to drive but got stopped…7…he got double teamed and had to kick out to the top of the key… 6… he swung the ball to the left side…5….he was trapped and had to kick to the corner…4…the guy who caught it took a shot at a layup and missed…3… our 5 man got the rebound and passed to the man intended to take the shot…2… when he got it he was double teamed and had to pass to me…1… all I heard was “SHOOT” and so I turned and shot the ball and when I saw it swish through the hoop all I knew at the time is I had done it!
When my teammates jumped and piled on me it was the most amazing feeling ever. When my team walked to the locker room, coach said I knew you were the guy to do it, as I was sitting on the bench smiling. He told us to change up and so we did as we were told. After we got our picture taken we walked out of the school together and one of my teammates walked up to me and said,” I can’t believe you just won the game for us.” I didn’t know what he ment so I said,” What do you mean?” He said what do you mean? You just made a three-pointer to win the game! And that was when I realized, I had won the game.
