Boys basketball: AFC tops Amboy on Aaron Lester’s last-second free throw

ASHTON – In a back-and-forth Northwest Upstate Illini Conference South game between Amboy and Ashton-Franklin Center on Wednesday night, a free throw was the deciding factor.

With the game tied at 38 and 1.9 seconds left, the Clippers (4-23, 0-5) committed a reach-in foul and sent Raiders junior guard Aaron Lester to the free-throw line.

The first shot went long and rimmed out. The second dropped in for a 39-38 lead as the AFC crowd erupted.

“Honestly, I almost started crying. I was so nervous,” Lester said about what he was thinking after missing the first free throw. “I didn’t want to lose it for our team, but luckily, I hit (the second one).”

With 1.9 seconds left, Amboy junior guard Eddie Jones threw an inbounds pass – a one-handed desperation heave that traveled the length of the court and hit junior guard Kabe Daniels in the hands – but the ball came in hard and fast and near the endline, bouncing off his chest and out of bounds for a turnover.

With under a second left, AFC inbounded the ball and ran out the clock.

“The (final) foul (was the difference in the game). We shouldn’t have fouled in that situation,” Amboy senior wing Troy Anderson said. “It’s just something we’ve gotta get better at, and we’ve gotta be a little more situationally aware and learn from it. We don’t have many games left.”

The Raiders (4-23, 1-8) took a 9-5 lead in the first quarter after a slow start shooting for both teams. A deep mid-range jumper by Lester near the right corner put AFC up 4-3 with 1:01 remaining. Senior guard Noah Danielson made a tough contact layup and a right-wing 3 around a Jones layup to stretch the 9-5 lead with six seconds left.

The second quarter was dictated by Amboy. Anderson scored nine of his game-high 19 points to fuel a 15-10 Clippers’ surge during the quarter.

Anderson started the run by putting back his own miss only 49 seconds in. With 6:47 remaining, he hit two throws to tie the game at 9-all. Lead changes continued from there until a three-point play by Amboy junior guard Quinn Leffelman tied the game at 16 with just under two minutes left.

In the final minute, Anderson made a layup off a Brody Christoffersen inbounds pass, then sophomore Ezra Parker and Anderson each went 1 for 2 at the free-throw line 3.4 seconds apart to take a 20-16 lead.

Danielson heaved a deep, buzzer-beater 3 from the left wing to draw within 20-19 at halftime.

“I feel like we haven’t been working as a team through the season, and we brought it tonight,” Danielson said. “We started working as a team finally.”

The third quarter was back and forth up to a 29-29 tie. After Jones hit a left-wing 3 with 44 seconds left, AFC junior Caleb Thomas answered with a right-wing 3 for a 32-29 lead at the end of the third quarter.

“It was amazing. I ate up the student section. It was just so hype,” Lester said about the energetic senior night crowd. “You can feel the atmosphere when you’re playing. The crowd couldn’t be any better.”

AFC junior Barrett Becker hit the second of two free throws to put the Raiders up 38-36 with 18.3 seconds left in the game, but Anderson scored on a quick charge to the basket, splitting a pair of defenders, to knot the game at 38 with 14 seconds left.

After the Raiders took over possession and ran off time, the Clippers committed the ill-advised foul, and Lester delivered the game-winning free throw.

“Honestly, it was all just mental. You had to lock in and can’t let anything get to you,” Lester said about battling through shooting struggles. “We showed a lot of resilience and that maybe our losing streak is going to come to an end, finally.”

Anderson finished with eight rebounds and two steals to go with 19 points; Leffelman supplied eight points, 11 rebounds and four steals; and Jones added five points, five rebounds and three steals. Parker grabbed seven rebounds for the Clippers.

Danielson totaled eight points and four rebounds; Lester and Thomas scored seven points each; and senior Mitchell McPheron and junior Nolan Rueff added five points each. Lester and junior Brock Lehman grabbed 10 rebounds each. Lester also had two steals and two assists.