One point two seconds.
That’s one number Orion fans remember from the sectional championship game on Friday, March 5.
That was the time on the clock when the Chargers, leading the Lewistown Indians 51-50, gave up a foul that sent Quinton Hatfill to the line.
Hatfill made the first of his free throws to send the game into overtime.
Two.
That might be a better number to remember from the Sweet 16 game at Bushnell-Prairie City High School.
Two is the number of overtimes the teams battled through before Lewistown captured a 76-65 win.
Fourteen and six.
The Chargers trailed by 14 points in the first period, but they pulled within two early in third.
In the first overtime, Orion had a six-point deficit with 40 seconds to go. Then Jared Simmer leaped to snag a Lewistown pass. At the other end of the floor, he netted two points.
When the Indians tried to run the ball against the press, Simmer pulled off a steal and drew a foul on another shot from the three-point arc. Calmly chewing gum, Simmer popped in all three of his freebies.
In the space of five seconds or so, Simmer had almost erased the deficit.
The Indians canned four free throws, but Chargers Tanner Williams converted an offensive rebound into a basket. With 10 seconds to go in overtime, Tyler DeDecker drained the three that tied the score at 61-all.
Lewistown had one more possession in the first overtime, but Simmer blocked the Indians’ last-second shot to send the game into another overtime.
Fifteen and ?.
It has been 15 years since the Chargers last played in a Sweet Sixteen game, but surely it won’t be that long until they return to the Sweet Sixteen.
“I’m so proud of them,” Orion coach Brent Hutton said. “They never quit playing. I apologize for the seniors. I wanted them to go to the super-sectional.
“This senior class in Orion Middle School was made fun of in all their sports,” Hutton said. “But if you work, nothing can be denied to you.”
The seniors led Orion to a super football season, which ended with a loss in quarterfinals to the eventual state champions, the coach said.
Now Kennen Hutchison, James Matson, Tyler DeDecker, Jared Simmer and Matt Thor have given Orion a super basketball season, he said.
The senior class shows what hard work will lead to, Hutton said. Considering how far they’ve come since middle school, this is the most improved senior class he has ever had.
