Last second basket
shocks Bellaire
Their hopes and dreams of a state championship was dashed Saturday afternoon when junior, Travis Courtney found a wide open Chibuike Chidomere under the basket for the banked shot that was uncontested to knock off the top ranked Bellaire Cardinals 55-53 at the Campbell Center to advance to the class 5A state semifinals in Austin next Friday. The first in the school’s history.
Fort Bend Bush Broncos (33-4) used 10-0 run to get out in front of the Cardinals. A tip in by Jordan Clark and a quick move to the basket by DaMarcus Gatlin gave Bush a 6-5 lead. Darius Richards then hit a three and Clark was fouled while driving to the goal. He converted both free throws to push the lead to 11-5. A defensive stop on the other end of the court led to a three pointer by Travis Courtney, the score 14-5 with 1:18 to go in the first quarter.
“What we do at Bush we do a lot of half court work where as I’m sure a lot of people like to run a scrimmage every day. We barely scrimmage because I know for a fact that you’re not going to run up and down the floor every ball game,” Bush Coach Ronnie Courtney said.
Tobi Oyedeji stops the bleeding for Bellaire with a jumper from the free throw line. Then Sheldon McClellan gets in on the action scoring the next four points when he penetrated up the middle, banks a shot off the glass as he was fouled. He converted the free throw. Without missing a beat McClellan was back at the charity stripe converting one of two free throws to pull the Cardinals within 3, 14-11 to end the first quarter.
The game became a tug of war in the second quarter. A layup by Richardson to put Bush up 16-11, but back came Bellaire’s McClellan with a three pointer, a steal by Sebastian Douglas as he slammed it home to knot the game at 16 with 6:50 to go. The remainder of the quarter went back and fourth with Bush holding a 29-26 halftime lead.
“We showed them a different kind of zone last night to kind of slow down Rasheed (Strake Jesuit’s standout Sophomore guard) and I think they went home and prepared for that one (speaking of Bellaire). I told my guys they want see that one today because we’re going to show them something different and I was about to go to the 1-3-1 and Darius was no coach don’t do it let us stay in what we’re in. That something I give my guys the opportunity to do, to tell me what they think is best and I go with it. Just like I ask them, do they want to go man, they said no. Because it’s their team and what they tell me is what we do,” Bush Coach Ronnie Courtney said.
Richardson connected on a trey to give Bush a six point lead, 36-30 with 5:45 to go in the third quarter. The Broncos got a stop on defense giving way to a fast break with Clark finishing it off to give Bush their largest lead since the first quarter, 38-30. Back at the other end Bellaire’s Jamel Outler found a sweet spot off the glass as he was fouled by Richardson. Outler finished the three point play pulling the Cardinals within 5, 38-33.
Later in the quarter Evans nails a three pointer for Bellaire cutting the lead to 4, 45-41 as time expired in the third quarter.
“One thing I tell the kids is adversity builds character, if I tell that to the kids I got to show it because right now they need me. There are worst things that happen in life than high school basketball. I guess we all want to win; we worked hard at our goal. This goal we didn’t quite reach this goal but there are other goals, it’s ok to set goals,” Bellaire Coach Glover said.
Bellaire (35-2) drew even with 2:26 to go in the game on McClellan’s three pointer. With the score tied at 53, Bellaire stalled the ball with 1:48 to play in an attempt to take the last shot. It backfired when Evans worked his way through the defense, passed the ball to Douglas who drove to the basket and had his shot rejected with 7 seconds to go. The Broncos Gatlin grabbed possession of the ball and race to the other end of the court where his shot was blocked out of bounds with 1.3 seconds to go. That’s when the heroics took place.
