Thanks to late heroics from junior forward Brody Bruns, Rochelle pulled off an improbable home victory on Friday night, stunning Ottawa 57-55.
With the Hubs’ trailing 55-54 with four seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, Ottawa junior forward George Shumway was fouled with a chance to make it a three point game. Shumway missed the front-end, then intentionally missed the second to limit the Hubs’ ability to get off a decent shot.
Rochelle sophomore forward Eli Schweitzer secured the rebound, took two dribbles up the floor and handed it off to Bruns, who threw up a prayer.
“Coach thought they might intentionally miss it and said we were going to have about three dribbles,” Bruns said. “Eli got a nice board, gave it to me and I knew I had to get the shot off. It felt good from the beginning - I was just hoping it went in.”
Bruns’ instinct was correct. The ball seemed to hang in the air forever before eventually going through the net in front of the student section, igniting a once-silent gym as Rochelle’s bench and fans both stormed the floor to celebrate the dramatic win.
Before Friday night, Bruns said he had never hit a shot beyond half-court or a walk-off buzzer-beater in his basketball career. One shot took care of both.
“That was the best one I’ve had so far,” Bruns said. “I’m just proud of this team. We fought hard all the way to the end and came out on top.”
Bruns led his team with 25 points and nine rebounds, while junior forward Warren Schweitzer added 13 points, nine rebounds and a block, and junior guard Mason Ludwig contributed 12 points.
After past seasons of seeing shots like the final one go the other way, Rochelle head coach Tim Thompson said it was a welcome change to finally be on the other end of it.
“We were talking as a coaching staff after the game - everyone was like, that stuff just doesn’t happen to us,” he said. “You really don’t get to see that often in general, but moments like that are why people love sports.”
Notably, after a slow start, Ottawa’s bench provided a spark that helped the Pirates take the early lead that it held for much of the game. Junior guard Dom Parks scored six points, senior guard Colt Bryson added six, and senior guard Lucas Farabaugh contributed five.
“We’ve got guys on the bench who can come in and give really good minutes, and those guys stepped up when we needed them early,” Cooper said. “I thought we gave ourselves a chance to win on the road, but Rochelle just made one more play than we did.”
Cooper confirmed Shumway had missed the second free throw intentionally and said, while Bruns’ buzzer-beater was heartbreaking, his team had several late opportunities to close out the game.
“We didn’t do enough good things in the fourth quarter to finish the game. We gave up some offensive rebounds and split a lot of free throws to open the door for that to happen,” Cooper said. “Give credit to Rochelle and Bruns for that shot but we needed to make it a little more difficult on him.”
Junior guard Jack Carroll led the Pirates with 22 points, two rebounds, an assist and two steals. Senior forward Owen Sanders added seven points, four rebounds and two blocks.
Now winning four of the last five games, Thompson emphasized the importance of playing well headed into the final stretch of the regular season.
“We’ve always prided ourselves on playing our best basketball in February, and I know the kids are excited about the momentum we have going into it,” he said.