GREENFIELD – With the game tied and roughly 15 seconds left on the clock, Anderson sophomore Don Bowling only had two words in mind.
“Just go.”
There was no last-second play drawn up.
No timeouts remaining.
Zero time to hesitate inside Greenfield-Central’s Dellen Automotive Gymnasium during the Class 4A Sectional 9 quarterfinals against rival Pendleton Heights.
“You just go,” Anderson coach Donnie Bowling instructed his son during the Indians’ final huddle before the final 35.5 seconds played out. “That’s what I told him. Just go.”
Pendleton Heights (17-6) deadlocked the back-and-forth contest for a seventh time, 51-51, with 17 seconds remaining after advancing full court and feeding 6-foot-8 senior James Hughes in the lane for a layup.
The final possession of regulation belonged to the Indians (16-7), and Bowling decided to call game.
Bowling initially passed off to his brother Raymond Bowling before it came back to Don.
That’s when the 6-foot-5 guard knew what to do.
A quick drive to the baseline, and Bowling elevated over Hughes for a running jumper, falling to the floor as the ball left his right hand.
The ball dropped through the iron, twirled in the net and finally plummeted down toward the court as the buzzer sounded.
Bowling, still on the ground, looked up before hopping back to his feet where his teammates and the student section swarmed him.
Anderson 53, Pendleton Heights 51.
“I knew the ball was coming to me. They trusted me with the shot. I was missing all game, had a rough game, but I hit the shot when it mattered,” Bowling said. “We had no play set. It was really just that, and I knew it was going in. I knew it really the play before because I knew they were going to hit (their shot).”
Prior to the game-winner, both sides traded blows and the lead six times.
Pendleton Heights led by six points in the first quarter, but seven first-half Arabians’ turnovers and Anderson’s pressure defense led to four ties before the Indians pulled ahead 30-27 by halftime.
Sophomore Laumanula Jackson (team-high 19 points, 10 rebounds) kept the Indians in the game with three of his four 3-pointers in the first quarter, while Arabians’ senior Cooper Sims had 11 of his game-high 22 points in the first 16 minutes.
A 12-0 run by the Arabians to open the second half put Anderson behind 39-30 – its largest deficit.
Pendleton Heights beat Anderson, 58-50, to open the regular season on Nov. 25, which snapped a 10-game losing streak and marked the Arabians’ first win since 2019.
Anderson beat Pendleton Heights in overtime, 58-54, during the 2021 sectional tournament, but had lost to the Arabians in two consecutive postseason meetings (2010, 2014) beforehand.
Anderson’s last postseason win was in 2023 against Greenfield-Central.
“It was a big deal for them. They lost (to Pendleton), so they were excited,” coach Bowling said of the rematch. “They stayed fast.”
Senior William Davis was the catalyst, as Anderson tied the game for a fifth time, 42-42, in the third behind a 12-3 run.
Davis buried a 3-pointer to end an 0-for-6 shooting start for Anderson in the second half and cut the deficit 39-33. Another Jackson 3-pointer followed by a pair of free throws made it 39-38.
A layup by Davis (13 points, 5 rebounds, 3 steals) locked up the score at 42-42 late in the third, and a solo, six-point swing by the forward in the fourth quarter off two Pendleton Heights’ turnovers (one steal by Davis) flipped the score 49-47.
“William Davis, he didn’t even play varsity last year, but he’s been an unsung hero all year,” coach Bowling said. “Nobody talks about it. They talk about Don. They talk about Manu, but nobody talks about William Davis.”
Anderson stalled and burned nearly two minutes off the clock, up 50-47, but two free throws by Sims with 51.3 left drew the margin closer. Anderson forced Pendleton Heights to foul, but the Indians converted 1 of 4 attempts.
Pendleton Heights’ senior Ashaan Singh (12 points) fouled out with 1:44 remaining. Hughes (5 points, 13 rebounds) carried four fouls until the end with both teams turning over the ball before Raymond Bowling went 1-for-2 from the foul line with 35.5 left.
“This is big,” said Bowling, who finished with 14 points, 4 steals and a block. “We have fight in us, and it showed all year. Throughout every single game we play, we have fight in us.”
Donnie Bowling had an emotionally charged dad moment on the sidelines as time expired, pointing to the scoreboard after the win in reference to his program’s first sectional win in three years and negative social media posts he read prior to the game.
“I was a parent at that moment,” coach Bowling said. “One thing I’ll say about this team. They never quit. We’ve been down, and the guys, they just fought. I don’t know if it’s the youth, and they don’t know any better, but they don’t give up.”
Anderson will face host Greenfield-Central (11-11) in Friday’s semifinal round. Muncie Central beat Richmond, 56-47, in the first quarterfinal and will play No. 4 Mt. Vernon (22-3) in the first semifinal game at 6 p.m.
“Pendleton is a really good team. This is one of their better years, and we were able to come through,” coach Bowling said. “I think it shows the growth of all of our players from the beginning of the season.”
It was a heartbreaking finish for Pendleton Heights in Jared Rhodes’ first season as coach.
“Tough way to finish,” Rhodes said. “I just got done telling them, I love the senior class. They’ve laid the foundation, and there’s now an expectation that wasn’t there before this year. They laid it all out there.”
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: ‘Just go.’ Anderson’s Bowling beats the buzzer, takes down Pendleton Heights
Reporting by Richard Torres, For IndyStar / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
