Parkland wins quarterfinal with buzzer beater

For the first 31 minutes and 56 seconds of Friday night’s EPC quarterfinal, it was a night Parkland senior Jayden Thomas desperately wanted to forget.

Now it’s a night he’ll remember forever.

With the game tied at 35 and four seconds left on the clock, fellow senior Robbie Ruisch raced up the court and found Thomas camped out on the left wing. The shot rippled the net at the buzzer and sent the home crowd into pandemonium.

“That’s my favorite spot and Robbie [Ruisch] made a great play and trusted me and I knocked it down,” Thomas said. “It was a rough shooting night, but my coaches kept preaching to stay confident because one was going to fall.”

Thomas was 0-6 from the field prior to the final shot, and started to pass up some open looks earlier in the game because of those struggles. With the clock about to hit zeroes, he had no choice but to let it fly.

Eddie Ohlson, in his first year coaching the team and his first career playoff game as a coach, was glad Thomas found his confidence again.

“He’s been in these situations before and we knew that if we had an opportunity and he was open that he’s a good shooter,” Ohlson said. “We were hoping that one of them would go in.”

The Trojans held the ball for the final minute and a half of the game to ensure the final shot, which nearly turned into a disaster for them when an inbounds pass was stolen by Nazareth senior Mason Kuehner who went to the foul line with five seconds left in a tie game.

At the line, with crowd in full roar, Kuehner missed both shots. “We lucked out that he missed those two foul shots and gave us an opportunity. And that’s all we could ask for at that point in the game,” Ohlson said.

Nobody was happier for Thomas than Parkland’s all-time leading scorer Nick Coval, who had a quiet night for his standards with 18 points. “Give a lot of credit to Jayden [Thomas] and his confidence and all the work he puts in,” Coval said.

It was clear from the opening tip that the Blue Eagles were going to do everything they could to keep the ball out of Coval’s hands as much as possible. Even if it meant holding the ball for two minutes at a time like they did on their first two possessions.

Poised ball-handling from Sina Ramin, who led Nazareth in scoring with 14 points, made it much easier to execute the slow down strategy without turning the ball over and finding the right shot in those longer possessions.

“Credit them because they played a different style that was untraditional and was something we weren’t super prepared for,” Ohlson said. “But our guys hung in there mentally and competed the whole game even when they went down five points late.”

That five-point deficit was a result of a scoring drought that lasted over five minutes coming out of halftime, allowing Nazareth to take a 27-22 lead with just over two minutes remaining in the third quarter. Parkland senior Zaire Smaltz put an end to the drought with a pair of free throws, and after a steal by Luke Spang on the ensuing inbounds pass, scored through contact and sank another free throw to tie the game at 27.

After Nazareth quickly took the lead back at the other end, Coval finally found some space on the perimeter and nailed a triple to put the Trojans on top. These flurries of scoring that seem to come out of nowhere are part of what earned Parkland the top seed in the tournament and what makes them serious contenders to win the whole thing next week at the PPL Center.

“That’s part of what we’re good at is that we have guys that can score in a hurry. They tried to take that away tonight and did a good job for awhile,” Ohlson said. “We were able to lean on each other when the time was right, fed off that energy, and got some points there quick.”

Coval is confident that this kind of win will only help the team as they prepare for a stretch run at an EPC and District XI championship.

“We can learn that we have some really resilient guys that are strong mentally,” Coval said. “Anyone can make a big shot at any time and we’re really dangerous when that happens.”

Up next: Parkland (18-5) advances to face No. 4 Liberty at 8 p.m. Monday night at PPL Center. Parkland beat Liberty 50-45 win in their last contest in January.

Nazareth (12-11) will be the sixth and final seed in the District XI 6A tournament but does not have a scheduled opponent yet.