Advance sees basketball season end on buzzer beater

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct that Ayden Henry made the game-winning shot. That correction is also reflected in the box score.

Farmington, Mo. -- Advance boys basketball coach Bubba Wheetley had one answer for what he told his players following their Class 2 quarterfinal game against Thayer on Saturday night.

"How much I love them," he said.

There's not much that could be said, as the Advance Hornets saw their season come to a heartbreaking halt after losing 46-45 on a shot as the buzzer sounded.

"It's tough. It's real tough to take right now," Advance senior Lane Below said. "I'm sure all of us will look back on it and be proud of what we've done, but it's real tough to take right now. It's upsetting to end our season like this."

Photo by John Paul Halford

It wasn't just that the Bobcats knocked down a 3-pointer in the corner as time expired, but rather the shot that led up to it.

When senior Austin Miller hit his fifth 3-pointer of the game with 5.7 seconds remaining, there was an air of excitement from the Advance crowd and team in the Civic Center in Farmington, Mo., and it seemed that the Hornets were headed for the state final four.

"We went from feeling pretty great about ourselves, you know, we thought we just hit a game-winning shot potentially," Below said. "Then we came out of the timeout and they run a play and get it up the floor and hit a shot and the season's over."

Ayden Henry hit the buzzer beater for the Bobcats, and it was a shot that he possibly shouldn't have even had the chance to take.

"I thought he walked down here. I know he walked. I saw the whole thing," Wheetley said about a call that could've been made seconds before the shot. "But I mean, they made the shot and we've just got to give them credit. I mean we had two guys in the corner on him, he threw it up and it went in. That's just the way it goes sometimes."

It was a close game throughout, with neither team leading by more than six points.

Advance never led during the first 16 minutes of the game. They trailed 16-11 after the first quarter and 28-24 at halftime.

The Hornets took their first lead of the game after knocking down their first three shots of the second half. Miller hit a shot from behind the arc to put the Hornets ahead 31-30 with 4 minutes, 50 seconds left in the third quarter.

They held Thayer to two points over the first 4:38 of the half. The Bobcats turned the ball over four times during that stretch.

The Hornets never trailed during the third, but Zach Steed hit a pair of free throws with .6 seconds to tie the game at 36-36 heading into the final eight minutes.

Advance led by as many as four points midway through the final quarter.

But Steed hit a 3-pointer and Richard Newman hit both free throws in a one-and-one to put Thayer up 43-42 with 2:26 remaining.

Advance settled for 3-point shots on its next three possessions, missing each, and elected to foul to stop the clock with less than 20 seconds remaining.

Steed missed the front end of a one-and-one and, following an Advance timeout, Miller knocked down his final 3-pointer before Henry's buzzer beater.

"I'll give them credit, they played good defense all night long," Wheetley said. "They held Lane down pretty good, and we just couldn't get nothing inside. Everything had to come from outside. And usually that's what happens when you can't score inside in the paint."

The Hornets were 10 of 22 from behind the arc and were 5 of 14 on 2-point shots. Miller and Below finished with 15 points apiece to lead the Hornets.

While it wasn't the way Advance wanted its final game to go, it was the ending to a somewhat unexpected successful season.

"Everybody came in everyday since whenever conditioning started, just wanting to get better, wanting to do something because nobody really expected us to do anything this season to be honest -- losing four starters from last year," Below said. "Everybody just wanted to come out and have a good year this year. We had a good year. We didn't get where we wanted to be, but it just wasn't meant to be. I couldn't be more proud of my teammates and my coaches."

Thayer 16 12 8 10 -- 46

Advance 11 13 12 9 -- 45

Thayer (46) -- Jacob Foley 3, Zach Steed 15, Richard Newman 2, Levi Hargrove 22, Ayden Henry 4. FG 18, FT 5-8, F9. (3-pointers: Foley 1, Steed 3, Henry 1. Fouled out: none)

Advance (45) -- Austin Miller 15, Lane Below 15, Eli Seger 3, Alex Morse 6, Dalton Wilson 4, Dawson Mayo 2. FG 15, FT 5-6, F 14. (3-pointers: Miller 5, Below 3, Morse 2. Fouled out: none).