THE buzz inside Enver Creek Secondary turned electric in the few remaining seconds of the Surrey RCMP Basketball Classic on Saturday night, when the home team Cougars sunk the final game-deciding shot, cementing themselves as 2023 Senior Champions.

Following an errant inbound pass by the Fleetwood Park Dragons, the Cougars gained possession with 3.3 seconds left on the clock while down by two points. Enver Creek’s Arpan Sidhu passed the ball to fellow point guard Ajaypal Hayer in the corner, who arced a three-point buzzer-beater straight through the net to take the game 69-68.

“I’ve been coaching for just over a decade, I’ve watched a lot of games, and I don’t recall seeing an ending quite like that,” said Enver Creek assistant coach Brandon Bottrill. “I’m still in shock that game ended the way it did. It was a storybook ending.”

Bottrill noted the finals could have easily gone the other way, as the Dragons finished the first three quarters in the lead. While the Cougars mostly closed the gap by halftime, they ended up down by 14 points at the tail end of the third.

“Full credit to Fleetwood, they played amazing defense, they did everything right defensively,” he said. “It’s hard to explain what got us back in the game. We got another buzzer-beating three at the end of the third, and I think that gave us some life going into the fourth.

“When you’re on your home court and you have hundreds of people cheering you on, it’s hard to roll over.”

While Cougars head coach Phil Deeks and Bottrill guided the senior boys this season, Bottrill credits the team for believing in themselves and playing their hardest to show they were down, but not out.

“I’m really proud of the boys for their perseverance and feeling they still had a shot,” said Bottrill. “It speaks to the boys, it’s them still believing they were in the game.

“I think it’s one of those games that people are going to talk about for a long time.”

Story and photos: Surrey Schools