Faith Christian beats Liberty at buzzer

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on December 13, 2014 11:26 PM

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By RUDY COGGINS

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Faith Christian head varsity basketball coach Stephen Hardison, for three brief seconds, channeled his "inner" Mike Krzyzewski on Friday evening.

Tied at 66 with 2.9 seconds left, Hardison called timeout and drew up a play on his white clipboard - with a blue dry-erase pen, of course.

"I saw Coach K draw up a play where Jhalil Okafor gets the ball right here (on the sideline), goes in and Justice Winslow comes in and he dunks it," a smiling Hardison said.

He gladly took a layup, instead.

Richard Sasser kissed the game-winning shot off the glass as time expired and capped Faith Christian's stirring, come-from-behind 68-66 victory over Liberty Christian of Durham in a N.C. Christian Schools Association 2-A non-region affair.

Sasser logged his second straight 33-point outing for the Conquerors, who improved to 2-5 overall this season. Christian Mills, saddled with four fouls, provided a double-double -- 12 points and 15 rebounds.

Ethan Glover supplied seven points in a reserve role.

Neither team held more than a five-point lead in a contest that grew intense during the final nine minutes. Jaleen Everette's steal and subsequent layup gave the Patriots (6-3 overall) a 48-44 lead with 1:09 left in the third.

Sasser answered with an offensive putback to make it 48-46.

David Parrish's 3-pointer off of Sasser's assist and Sasser's running one-hander put the Conquerors back in front, 54-51, around the five-minute mark. Liberty responded with a 10-2 run that included seven second-chance points on offensive rebounds and ended with another Everette steal that resulted in an uncontested layup.

The Patriots led 66-61 with 2:31 to go.

"One of the things I was frustrated with a couple of times was just our lack of boxing out," said Hardison, whose team surrendered 17 total points on the offensive glass to the Patriots.

"I got with some of them (during a timeout) and told them you have to do the basic fundamentals."

Sasser buried his fifth 3-pointer, and 11th in the last two games, to close the gap to 66-64. Mills came up with a steal underneath Liberty's basket and Sasser finger-rolled a layup to tie the game at 66-66.

Liberty committed another turnover and Sasser drove to the basket. He missed the shot and Mills' putback attempt didn't fall.

"I didn't know what to think, thought it was going in," Sasser said.

The Patriots, again, turned the ball over when Everette -- tightly defended by Raleigh Anderson -- couldn't catch a pass in front of the Conquerors' bench.

Two timeouts later came "the play."

"It was designed to give him (Sasser) a screen so he could shoot," said Faith's Ryan Collier, who set the screen on the game-winning shot. "We had just a few seconds to make the play, and we did."

Sasser had no doubt he'd make the shot.

A junior who thrives under pressure, he easily beat his defender to the basket. Hardison saw the midcourt referee count the basket, Faith's players celebrated and the Patriots stood in stunned silence.

"We never gave up," Sasser said. "Coach told us to play hard defense and it worked for us."

Thank you, Coach K.