NY High School Basketball Player Wins Game with 70-Foot Buzzer Beater

A New York high school senior went from zero to hero in seconds on Saturday after missing a free throw that he thought may have cost his team a championship game. Only to turn around and make a desperate buzzer-beating toss from 70-feet out to sink a basket that gave his team the game.

Some are calling the shot the “McGarvey Miracle.” It’s hard not to see the performance as just that as Ardsley senior Julian McGarvey sunk an incredible three-quarter court shot a second before the buzzer to win the Section 1 Class A championship, 52-51, over Tappan Zee at Pace University on March 3, Lohud.com reported.

But that wasn’t the whole of the story. McGarvey had only a short time before his amazing shot missed a free throw that he thought surely must have cost his team the game. Indeed, he didn’t just miss one, but two free throws.

But as play continued after he missed the free throws and the clock quickly counted down with his team trailing 51-49, in the last seconds of the game, McGarvey intercepted a pass from a Tappan Zee player and just before the buzzer sounded he wound up and gave the ball a mighty throw toward the basket. The results sent the whole gym into a frenzy as fans flooded the floor after the incredible winning basket.

“At one moment it looks like the whole world was ending and I’m about to start bawling on the court because I just missed the free throws to win the game for my team,” McGarvey said after the game. “And then they throw one down half court, I catch it, stumble a little bit, throw it as I’m falling back and it found the bottom of the net.”

“As soon as it left his hand, my first thought was he has the greatest arm I’ve ever coached, too, so I knew it was going to get there,” Ardsley coach Sean Cappiello added. Cappiello, though, insisted that he didn’t think for a second that the last ditch throw would land the net. “I guess my thought while the ball was in the air was, what a cool way to end it,” he said.

McGarvey, who is committed to Marist College on a football scholarship, joked that his “quarterback arm helped a bit,” to make the shot.

The shocked player’s astounding basket delivered Ardsley its first Section 1 championship since 1958 during its first finals appearance since 1999.

“It’s the greatest moment of my life,” McGarvey concluded. “I want to break down and cry, but I don’t want to do it on camera.”

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.