Hanover, Johnson beat buzzer at Highland

Updated: March 23, 2011 9:18AM

It's not often a game-winning play turns out just like it was designed.

Hanover Central's game-winning basket as the buzzer sounded didn't turn out that way, either.

"It was just like I drew it up," Wildcats' coach Rod Bollenbacher joked after Max Johnson calmly grabbed Zach Rush's air-balled 3-point shot and layed it in at the buzzer, lifting Hanover to a dramatic 65-63 win over Highland Tuesday night.

"When I saw it coming, I got up in the air and thought I'd do my best to put it in," said Johnson, who ended up with 12 points and seven rebounds. "I was excited when it went in, I just didn't really show it."

Earlier this season, Johnson nailed a 3-pointer at the buzzer to force overtime in the semifinals of the Porter County Conference Tournament against Hebron, and the Wildcats (11-9) ended up winning that game, too.

"Max is such a great athlete," Coach Bollenbacher said. "He can dunk. He's got great instincts and he can really jump."

Bollenbacher laughed when asked what type of play he called to try and win the game.

"We wanted to get ‘Baby' (Derek De St. Jean) the ball off a screen coming back in after inbounding the ball," he said. "Max rebounded Zach's shot and layed it in. He's always in a good spot. Things just went our way."

Highland (9-11) had rallied from a 61-53 deficit with 2:31 left to tie the game on a rebound basket by Mike Anderson with 16.1 seconds remaining. Hanover Central called timeout with 5.3 seconds left to set up a play.

"I looked in their eyes with five seconds to go and I knew we were going to win it," Bollenbacher said. "Every one of those kids had that look in their eyes like they knew they were going to win."

De St. Jean led Hanover Central with a game-high 19 points and nine rebounds, while Cameron Brady scored 14 points and had six rebounds.

Junior guard Nick Bollenbacher ended up with nine points and dished out nine assists, while Rush had nine points, six rebounds and four assists.

The loss was a tough one to swallow for the Trojans, who lost to Lowell on a buzzer-beating shot by Lowell's Austin Richie at home earlier this season.

"We forced a bad shot, but we just didn't finish the play," Highland coach Eddie Fierek said. "We just didn't cover the back side on the rebound. We got caught ball-watching, instead of blocking out. Good teams finish plays and we just didn't do that tonight."

Keith Mahler, who had a game-high 10 rebounds, scored a team-high 18 points to lead the Trojans, while Jordan Minch (13) and Nick Hardrict (10) also finished in double figures.

Mahler and Minch, however, had a difficult night shooting -- going a combined 13 of 34 from the floor.

Highland only made 1 of 13 attempts from behind the arc and converted just 12 of 19 free throws.

"We left a lot of points off the board," Fierek said.

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