St. Rita junior Christian Henry had the ball in his hands with the score tied and seconds left Monday. He heard Willowbrook say it was in a man-to-man defense. That was all he needed.
‘‘When I heard that, my first instinct was to attack,’’ Henry said. ‘‘I knew the person in front of me was going to have a hard time trying to stop me from getting to the rim. But then time was running out, and somebody told me to shoot it. I did, and it felt good.’’
Henry popped the shot from the middle of the lane while on the run. It went over a defender and into the basket as Henry crashed to the floor.
‘‘I looked up and saw it go in, and then I looked to my right and saw all my teammates coming at me,’’ Henry said. ‘‘I didn’t know what to do after that.’’
The buzzer-beater gave the Mustangs a 61-59 victory against the Warriors in the first round of the Hinsdale Central Holiday Classic.
Wow. Christian Henry wins it at the buzzer for St. Rita
— Michael O'Brien (@michaelsobrien) December 23, 2019
Mustangs beat Willowbrook 61-59 pic.twitter.com/h9Sh3JFYAo
‘‘He made a difficult shot,’’ Willowbrook coach Chris Perkins said. ‘‘It happens. Heartbreaker.’’
Henry scored 16 points and had six assists. Senior Alec Millender led St. Rita (8-4) with 20 points and six assists.
‘‘We lean on [Millender] the most,’’ Mustangs coach Roshawn Russell said. ‘‘He’s the only guy on the team that averaged double-digit minutes last year. We have guys who either didn’t play at all last year or this is their first year of varsity basketball. I can’t say enough about Alec. We are going to go as he goes.’’
St. Rita trailed 12-0 in the first quarter and didn’t lead until a basket by Dalen Horace with 2:45 left in the third.
‘‘We have been through a lot of games where we started off bad,’’ Henry said. ‘‘We always came back and pushed through. I knew our team would get the right mindset and that we could actually win the game. We just had to stop No. 3. Once we did that and contained everyone else, we were fine.’’
No. 3 for Willowbrook (4-6) is Everett Stubblefield III. He finished with 21 points and shot 8-for-12 from the field, including 3-for-6 from three-point range.
Sam Bruns added 11 points for the Warriors, who outrebounded the Mustangs 33-23 despite being the smaller team.
Stubblefield and point guard Sam Tumilty starred for the Willowbrook football team that lost in the Class 7A semifinals last month to Mount Carmel.
‘‘They are just now starting to get their basketball legs,’’ Perkins said. ‘‘They lost in the semis on a Saturday, had a shootaround on Monday and then had to play four games in five days. That was without any practices. So it took a little while to get them going. We are getting there, though.’’
St. Rita advanced to face Marian Catholic in the quarterfinals Thursday. The Spartans beat T.F. South 57-54 in the first round.
Marian Catholic beat the Mustangs 72-52 on Saturday, but that doesn’t faze Russell.
‘‘We want Marian Catholic again,’’ Russell said. ‘‘They are a great team, well-coached. But we want them again. This time, hopefully it will work out in our favor.’’
