By Chuck Delsman

Jake Knueppel scored only one basket all night long last Saturday for the Hamilton varsity boys basketball team. But what a basket it was.

The 6-foot-3 junior was in the right place at the right time and made a layup with just two-tenths of a second showing on the clock, leading the Chargers to a wild, come-from-behind 65-63 WIAA regional championship victory over host Arrowhead before an energetic and overflow crowd.

Seconds after the buzzer sounded, one of the most enthusiastic Hamilton celebrations ever took place at midcourt.

“This feels great,” Knueppel said. “They had us down most of the game, but we never quit. We just kept playing hard. The coaches kept telling us to stay in the game. We never lost our confidence. Tonight we finished the game.”

The victory vaulted the Chargers (13-11) into the WIAA sectional Thursday against No.1 ranked Germantown (24-0) at Waukesha North.

Hamilton won last Saturday’s game in dramatic fashion, outscoring the Warhawks (14-10) by a 12-2 margin in the game’s final 71 seconds. The Chargers scored the final seven points of the game in the last 28.1 seconds.

Nobody came up bigger for the Chargers than sophomore Brady Ellingson. The 6-foot-3 guard fired in a season-best 33 points, scoring 22 of those in the second half. Arrowhead never had an answer.

It was Ellingson’s long, 25-foot, 3-pointer with 7.4 seconds remaining in the game that tied the score at 63, setting up the last-second heroics by Knueppel.

Chargers finish strong

Things certainly looked bleak for the Chargers when Arrowhead grabbed a 61-53 lead with 1:22 remaining in the game.

Junior center Mitch Willer got the visitors rolling by hitting a short jump shot with 1:11 to play. Fifteen seconds later, senior Nick Patterson buried a 3-pointer to make it a 61-58 deficit.

AHS stopped that Hamilton surge by getting a basket from Ryan Saeger to put the Warhawks on top at 63-58 with 42.3 seconds left on the clock.

Enter Ellingson.

Ellingson then nailed a 15-foot jump shot with 28.1 seconds to go to make it 63-60. After Arrowhead’s Kenny Finco missed the front end of a bonus with 18.9 seconds to play, the Chargers grabbed the rebound and headed up court. The slick-shooting sophomore Ellingson got open for a split second and launched a 25-footer, well behind the 3-point arc. The ball hit nothing but net.

AHS quickly inbounded the ball, but Finco dribbled out of bounds at halfcourt with 3.0 seconds to play. Hamilton then called timeout, followed by an Arrowhead timeout.

When play resumed and with the entire crowd standing, Brandon Hagenow inbounded to Patterson. Patterson instantly passed to Tony Gumina, who spotted Knueppel wide open under the basket. Knueppel caught the ball, laid it in and the improbable Hamilton comeback had been completed.

“I don’t know how Tony got that ball to me at the end,” Knueppel said. “There wasn’t much room for the ball to get through. Arrowhead had about three guys in the way, but somehow he got it to me and I was fortunate enough to make it. This one feels really good."

Prior to the game-winning basket, the Chargers had led in the game for just 89 seconds.

“Brady had a hot hand most of the game, and for a while we got standing around watching him,” said Hamilton coach Andy Cerroni. “But the guys dug down and played well at the end. This group of guys never quit, and that was the case tonight.”

Second option

On the game-winning inbounds play, Cerroni said the plans were never to get the ball to the red-hot Ellingson.

“We knew they were not going let Brady get the ball, so we worked around him,” Cerroni said. “We got the ball inbounds, and then Tony made a great pass to Jake. We lost some close games this year by either missing shots at the end or watching the other team make a basket to win it. Maybe we had this one coming. I know this. This was a great high school basketball game.”

For Arrowhead, it was an awful case of deja vu after a last-second buzzer-beater by Waukesha West's Joe Schobert ended the Warhawks season last year.

“I’ve suffered my share of disappointing defeats over the years, but this one just might hurt the most,” said Arrowhead coach Craig Haase. “Our guys played some outstanding basketball until the final 18 or 20 seconds. Give them credit, Ellingson hit a 25-foot, double-clutch 3-pointer in the final seconds. Considering the pressure, that was a big, big basket. He deserves all the credit in the world for making that play. We just didn’t finish the way we wanted to.”

Sophomore Billy Hirschfeld scored 15 points for Arrowhead, 12 of which came in the first half. He also grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds.

Hamilton fell behind 19-9 after the first period and 34-30 at the intermission. Going into the fourth quarter, AHS led by a 44-43 score.

Ellingson finished the night making 12 of 20 shots from the floor and all six of his free throws. At one stretch early in the third period, he scored 11 straight points in a span of 2:12.

Patterson added 9 points to the Hamilton total and Hagenow chipped in with 8. The Chargers shot 50 percent for the night, canning 23 of 46 field goal tries. From the foul line Hamilton was brilliant, making 15 of 16.