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Pleasant Grove • Forrest Pincock looked more like a quarterback inbounding the ball with 2.5 seconds left on the clock in the second overtime Tuesday.
He hurled the ball to Pleasant Grove teammate Matt Conway at the midcourt, and Conway attacked the basket while swarmed by American Fork defenders.
He drove hard and was fouled while going up for the go-ahead basket. Conway stepped to the line with two-tenths of a second on the clock and a tied score. In a roller-coaster game that featured nine lead changes, he clanked his first shot off the rim.
He calmly dribbled twice and let up a shot for nothing but net.
"I had doubts when I was at the line, but I have made a ton of these in the past," Conway said with a smile. "I just kept my head and knew I could do it."
Vikings players and fans mobbed Conway after the horn, which gave Pleasant Grove a 76-75 victory.
The Vikings kept pace throughout the game by relying on Conway's scoring and trying to limit American Fork's twin towers of Ryan Andrus and Tyler Rawson, who combined for 51 points.
"We were able to stop Andrus from having a lot of second shots," Pleasant Grove coach Randy McAllister said. "The guys were able to tune up their defense and follow our game plan."
Battling through overtime is nothing new for the Vikings. They went to four overtimes against Lehi in their last game, and Conway was confident in his teammates to finish off the Cavemen in the second extra session Tuesday.
"I knew we could do it. We just had to pull together and put them away," he said. "Besides, if I didn't make that last shot, the student body was going to kill me."