SPRING VALLEY - Teegan Davis was a lockdown, all-state defensive back for Princeton’s 3A quarterfinalists in football this year.

The Pontiac Indians and the Colmone Classic basketball fans found out exactly why Saturday night at Hall High School.

Davis made two defensive stops in the final 30 seconds of the game to steal away a 52-47 victory over Pontiac in the championship game.

“End of the game, it’s a scramble. Everything’s put under a magnifying glass and it ended up going our way,” Davis said.

Princeton found the Indians to be a much tougher challenge for the Colmone Classic championship than they did two weeks ago at the Ottawa Thanksgiving Tournament when the Tigers won by 26 points.

The Indians led throughout nearly all of the first three quarters Saturday night and played the No. 3 ranked Tigers to a 53-53 tie with three minutes to go in the game.

Then Davis took over the game defensively.

He stole a Pontiac inbounds play and made 1 of 2 free throws with 21 seconds left to give the Tigers a 60-57 lead.

Davis made another steal and passed off to teammate Grady Thompson, who brought down the house with a break-away dunk to seal the championship victory.

“No better way to put a team away than that,” Thompson said.

Thompson and Princeton coach Jason Smith were not surprised to see Davis make those kind of plays.

“He played great tonight. That was huge. He’s a big-time player and he makes big-time plays,” Thompson said. “I think our defense led to that win, because we did not have anything going on offensively.”

“How about that Teegan Davis? He’s just all over the place. Making plays all over the place, left and right, especially in the last 30 seconds,” Smith said. “He just took over the game. Big-time players make big-time plays and he did it tonight.”

It was the second straight Colmone Classic championship for Princeton, which improved to 10-0 with the win.

“It’s a big accomplishment and we just got to keep moving on and have bigger visions the rest of the season,” Davis said.

Thompson said it was good for the Tigers to get pushed like this, because “down the road that will help us in game situations, I feel like. To have those kind of teams play us close, it’s a good thing.”

“To beat a state caliber team like Pontiac twice is nice and we knew they were going to give us their best shot,” Smith said. “We didn’t play our best ball by any means, but that has a lot to do with them, too. To come out and grind out a win like that, it felt like a regional-type win. It was a good experience for us.

“Hat’s off to the coaches at Pontiac and their players, because they played their tails off and we were just fortunate to come off with a win.”

Princeton didn’t take its first lead of the game until late in the third quarter when Thompson converted a 3-point play and scored on a drive for a 42-41 lead.

Pontiac, however, regained a 44-41 lead at quarter’s end on a 3-point buzzer-beater by Kerr Bauman.

The Tigers did not go ahead for good until a Noah LaPorte hoop put them up 55-53 with three minutes left to play.

Along with his defensive stops, Davis also found time to lead the Tigers in scoring with 20 points. Thompson had 19 points and Korte Lawson and LaPorte added 10 each.

Both Davis and Thompson, the MVP for the second straight year, were named to the all-tournament team,

Pontiac’s Kerr Bauman led all scorers with 24 points and teammate Riley Weber added 14.

Tiger tales: Princeton returns to action back at Hall Friday night.