Highlands’ Carmine Lacava’s 3-point buzzer beater pushed Highlands to a 68-65 win at Burrell in a wild come-from-behind victory.
With the score tied 65-65, Preston Foster passed it to Brayden Spiering, who drew the defense and left Lacava wide open at the wing. Lacava buried it.
“I knew I had to make this for my team,” Lacava said. “I just knew how much time was on the clock. I shot it. Made it. I’m just grateful.
“That was an amazing pass. He knew how much time was on the clock, and he just passed it and gave me the ball and I knocked it down.”
Rams leading scorer Troy Bielak, who finished with 21 points, six rebounds and four assists, was proud of Lacava for the work paying off.
“He shoots every morning, and he just he puts in the work,” Bielak said. “We got shooting practice on the machine every morning, and he’s there and no matter what. If he’s the only one, or if the whole team’s there, he’ll be there. He gets up 200 shots every morning and more, and he’s consistent. He has confidence in himself.”
The second and third quarters had been all Burrell.
The Bucs launched a 3-point barrage — making 13 in the game — with Ryan Wass hitting seven for 23 points and Adam Wass making four for 20 points. D.J. Consentino made two.
Burrell strung together a 25-point third quarter, and that carried over into the fourth as the Bucs led 62-54 with 4 minutes to play.
But Highlands finished on a 14-3 run, with Lacava mustering the last six points.
The Rams held the Bucs without a field goal for the last five minutes. Bielak, who tallied three steals, said their full-court press with a half-court trap got Highlands out of rhythm.
“All of our lengths combined, they have to throw passes because we’re trapping so hard, or it’s a 5-second call,” Bielak said. “We’ve been taught to have our hands in the passing lane, and that’s what gets us many deflections and we just want to turn it up the floor and get in transition.”
He credited their victory to their grit.
“Every practice, we’re trapping, we’re getting out of breath, we’re yelling at each other, we’re just getting at it and I think that’s what it was at the end,” Bielak said. “Fourth quarter is that last sprint you run. We had the breath, the energy and the confidence in each other. They had two kids with over 20 points, but for us, we all can score. That’s why we win.”
Preston Foster had eight points, with Ty Hall and Brady Celko adding seven.
Nonetheless, the Wass brothers stole the show and carried momentum early.
“They were hitting today,” Lacava said. “They’re hell of ball players. They can shoot the ball really well.”
Burrell coach Michael Fantuzzo was proud of the Wass brothers, who tallied 43 of Burrell’s 65 points.
“We know what they can do, and they finally got the confidence and they put it together and that’s what we expect out of them,” he said. “That was something Highlands did differently in those last few minutes.”
Fantuzzo said the Rams defense got to them at the end.
“Sam (Conte) fouled out, and they got after us a little bit,” Fantuzzo said. “We didn’t recognize early enough, and it caught us off guard.”
As for the final moments, with Burrell up 62-54, Lacava drilled a three to cut it to 62-57.
A few possessions later, Bielak notched a steal and hit Lacava on an outlet pass to tie it at 64-64.
With 2:01 left, Highlands had the game in its hands.
Lacava drew a foul and hit one of two from the line to go up 65-64. With 1:15, Grant Orr grabbed an offensive rebound and drew a foul, but could make only one of two to tie it at 65-65.
After exchanging possessions, Lacava hit his buzzer-beater.
Fantuzzo took some positives out of the loss.
“It could show us what we need to do to win a game, what we need to do to lose a game,” he said. “Unfortunately, we found ourselves on the losing end today, but it also shows us that we can play with most of the teams in the section.”
Bielak wants to keep the Highlands momentum rolling but also took the game as a learning experience.
“We got to start off hotter,” he said. “I think we play Mars next, and we really have to try to start off hot and, obviously, keep the grit we had, but definitely can’t start like that.”