GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KREX) — “One of the coolest moments of my high school career," said Andrew Henderson smiling from ear to ear as he reflected on the shot of his life.
Tied at 28 in a pivotal game with Montrose, just eight seconds remained. Grand Junction's Edison Dean had just tied the game with a three then picked off a Montrose pass for the steal and possession. Head Coach Dutch Johnson then called timeout to set up a potential game-winning bucket.
"I remember hollering timeout with eight seconds left," said Johnson. "While I’m talking with our coaches, I thought it was a full timeout. And so we were still talking about where we wanted people and then the buzzer sounded. I ran out of time. So I really gave them almost absolutely nothing as they went out onto the court.”
Henderson corroborates that story.
“Coach, he didn’t really do anything," Henderson said with a laugh. "He thought it was a full timeout but it was a 30-second so we were just like 'we're just gonna do a corner ball screen and see what happens.'"
So what did happen?
Grant Lewis drove, kicked it out to Henderson who quickly shot an open three with just over three seconds left. It missed off the back iron, bouncing high into the air then into a scrum of players in the paint. As all players attacked the ball in hopes of a rebound, the ball ricocheted off several hands, through the hands of a Red Hawk and back to Henderson about 17 feet away from the hoop near the left wing. With seconds quickly thinning, Henderson let it fly. The ball left his fingertips with 0.1 on the clock. With the backboard outlined in red and the buzzer loudly sounding, the ball harmlessly swished through the rim's netting. Ball game.
Here's Henderson's retelling of the sequence:
"Grant drives in, Kaleb [Ferguson] switches on to him so I come up the lane because I don’t want to be in his way. The ball kind of finds its way to me. I don’t know how much time was on the clock so I just let it fly. I was like 'I don’t know it feels like a good shot, I’m open.' I see myself miss it and I’m like 'there’s still some time left.' I’m not really thinking too much about it but I just see the ball go through a [Montrose player's] hands, I pick it up and, as weird as it seems, I’ve actually kind of practiced that shot before. I just put it up I was like 'we've probably got some time left' and it released and I see [the buzzer] go and it went in... it was an awesome moment.”
"All the stars were lined up on that last shot," said Johnson. "We needed to get a little bit lucky there and we did."
Grand Junction had to quickly hit the road the following morning, as they had a road date Saturday with Durango. The Tigers failed to recapture the momentum felt at the end of Friday's win in a 46-35 loss to the Demons, but they have a chance to pull off some more Friday home magic when Fruita is in town for a huge battle.