Baker’s Desmond Williams nearly perfect at the line but Fairhope pulls off buzzer-beating win

 

 

Baker’s Desmond Williams (3) often faced this kind of pressure from Fairhope, including Jackson Gulley, center, but finished with 26 points after hitting 17 of 19 free throws, including 15 straight. (Helen Joyce/Call News)

 

 

 

By JIMMY WIGFIELD

MONTGOMERY — Time stopped, and not just because the buzzer went off. Breathing stopped, and not just because Marc Howard was in a blurry hurry to get the basketball out of his hands before it was too late. Hearts stopped, and not just because the ball that would determine the winner and the loser of a rather large game on Friday teetered tantalizingly on the rim, seemed to have the legs of a drunken caterpillar, crawled about as slowly and, worst of all, couldn’t decide which way to go.

“My heart was beating real fast or it stopped,” Fairhope coach Ralph Watson said. “One of the two.”

The odds were also one of two that the ball’s ultimate fate would exhilarate one team and exasperate the other.

When the ball finally surrendered to gravity and gently swirled to the bottom of the basket, the No. 5-ranked Pirates had a 67-65 victory over No. 10 Baker in the Class 7A South Regional semifinals at Garrett Coliseum and Howard had a hard time getting off the court.

“Everybody just came and trampled me,” he said.

In keeping with the outlandish ending of the game, Fairhope (18-9) and Daphne (21-6) — which are just 12½ miles apart — must drive 179 miles on Wednesday to play each other for a trip to the state tournament. The Pirates inflicted a 91-66 loss on the Trojans a few weeks ago and it’s doubtful anything they can conjure will be more mesmerizing than what happened on Friday, when there were 11 lead changes and four ties.

“I’m sure it was a great game to watch,” Watson said. “It wasn’t a great game to coach for a while. I was really tired.”

Howard came upon his chance to win the game unexpectedly, after the Pirates’ best player, 6-4 guard Jaden Champion, found himself stymied by the Hornets’ trapping defense.

“I think we got what we wanted on the last play but I think God decided it wasn’t our day today,” said Baker coach David Armstrong, whose team had rallied from a 15-point deficit to put itself in position to force overtime. “It hurts a little bit.”

Armstrong described the winning shot as “falling down off the glass, toilet bowled in,” and, while gracious in yet another frustrating loss at the regionals, he probably felt like throwing up into one afterward.

“A shot like that goes in at the end of a game, it’s a tough way to lose,” Armstrong said. “It was a hell of a game. Hats off to Fairhope, they did a great job.”

Howard had just made a major blunder, too, failing to get an inbounds pass in on time to give the ball back to the Hornets, who quickly took advantage when Desmond Williams — who got poked and blinded in one eye at last year’s regionals on the same floor and was shooting only 64% from the free-throw line — uncoiled a strong drive into the lane, got fouled and planted his 14^th and 15^thconsecutive made free throws with 8.3 seconds left to tie it at 65-65.

After Watson called time out — “It’s exactly how we drew it up,” he chuckled — the Pirates had to go the length of the floor and wanted to get the ball to Champion, who scored 15 points on Friday.

“But they were smart,” Watson said of Baker. “They doubled him and made him give it up.

With the Hornets’ defense overshifted toward the ball, a low pass with no earmarks of greatness on it came to Howard, who had room to maneuver on the left side of the floor.

“I was the deep pass,” Howard said. “But then they doubled (Champion). And then I just cut in, I was open.”

Howard drove the baseline but quickly drew attention, as if he were handing out $100 bills.

“I kind of just threw it up, honestly,” he said. “I was expecting a foul. I kind of stumbled and I just threw it up on the backboard and I looked up and it was rolling around. I thought it was going to roll out.”

With the clock breathing its last and the ball gyrating around the basket, everything stopped in Garrett Coliseum with the possible exception of state prison inmates hauling food up from the kitchen to the concession stand — and maybe even they stopped to get a look. The hot dogs could wait.

From Watson’s viewpoint on the bench, waiting for the ball to make up its mind was torturous.

“It rolled around the rim for about, what, six-and-a-half minutes?” he said. “Isn’t that what it was? Something like that.”

The shot marked another excruciating defeat for Armstrong and Baker, which has lost in the regionals three straight years after going to the state final four in 2022 and compiling a 104-27 record the last four years.

“I’m proud of what these younger guys and the seniors especially have put into this program the last four years,” said Armstrong, whose team finished 22-9. “As much as I hate losing today, I’m still proud of what we’ve done.”

Because of that culture, Fairhope’s big lead into the third period meant nothing to the man who held it.

“I knew that’s a winning program right there,” Watson said of the Hornets. “I knew that they weren’t going to fold up. I knew it was going to be a battle all the way.”

With Baker facing a 43-28 deficit in the third period, Williams — a 6-2 senior point guard who has committed to South Alabama — led the comeback and finished with 26 points, including the 15 straight free throws he stuffed down the Pirates’ throats.

“He’s a heck of a player,” Watson said. “That’s why he’s a Division I point guard. He’s a handful.”

Armstrong said Williams rose to the occasion after struggling at the free-throw line for most of the season.

“Today, he did a great job knocking down what he needed to do,” Armstrong said. “That’s clutch to go in with eight seconds left and make two free throws to tie a game. I thought the guys did a great job fighting and giving us a chance to take it to overtime and win the game.”

Williams was accidentally jabbed in the eye and hospitalized during last year’s South Regional semifinals but his eyes were wide open on Friday when the Pirates kept him from finishing at the rim and often forced him to pass, presenting him man-to-man pressure and double teams when he tried to penetrate. Deep into the fourth period, he was only 2 of 12 from the field.

But Williams found more room inside when 6-7 Fairhope forward Jackson Gulley fouled out with 1:56 to go and he began attacking the Pirates more aggressively, drawing fouls and stopping the clock.

“It was really clutch,” Armstrong said. “It’s the way you win a game when you’re down — get to the free throw line, knock down free throws, slow the game down, play it that way.”

Williams made 17 of 19 free throws, including 9 of 9 in the fourth period.

With Gulley on the bench, Williams responded to Jackson Robertson’s corner 3-ball with a writhing layup and a free throw after drawing a foul to make it 60-56.

Howard, in an omen of what was to come, scored on a weakside lay-in for a 62-57 lead after Fairhope spread the floor to drain the clock. But Williams finished a layup and made four more free throws to cut the lead to 65-63 with 17.3 seconds left.

Aside from Williams’ free throws, the most telling statistic was the Pirates’ weighty 13-2 advantage in bench scoring.

“We had strength in our numbers,” Watson said. “Our bench played really well, particularly when Gulley was in foul trouble in the first half. I thought we responded and played really, really well, really gritty, without your best player on the court.”

Howard finished with 14 points and Robertson with 13. Derrick Florence had 11 for the Hornets before fouling out and Bralyn Taylor added 10.