It was the type of shot that Morton senior Tyreion Jackson had made in his mind countless times.
“Ever since I played basketball,” he said. “Since I was 6 years old.”
Just 6.6 seconds were on the clock inside the John A. Baratto Athletic Center at East Chicago Central, the place where Jackson grew up playing basketball.
After taking an inbound pass near midcourt, the 6-foot 1 senior pulled up about 25 feet from the rim and unleashed his shot.
Swish.
“I knew it was going in when it came off my hand,” he said.
That was the game-winner in Morton’s 67-64 win over Highland in the opening game of the Class 4A East Chicago Central Sectional.
And it was Jackson’s second attempt at a game-winner that night. At the end of regulation, with the score tied at 59-59, Jackson attempted a 3-pointer that was off the mark, leading to overtime.
“I forced that last shot in the fourth quarter,” he said. “I rushed it. The last shot, I just let it come to me.”
Jackson finished with a game-high 32 points for Morton (15-9).
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“We’d actually called for him to go down low,” Morton coach Robert Hall said. “But the guy was backing up off so he just took the first shot.”
As for Highland (9-15), Trojans coach Jordan Heckard just shrugged his shoulders when asked about the winning shot.
“If you can force him to shoot a 25-footer at the buzzer, most times you’d feel good with a guy shooting that to beat you,” Heckard said. “He’s a player.”
Morton led 34-27 at the half and appeared ready to run away with the game when they stretched that lead to 10 in the third quarter. But the Trojans fought back by making the Morton defense move.
“One of our biggest keys is ball movement,” Heckard said. “We had a long span at the start of the (second) half where the ball wasn’t moving. They were trying to do too much. When you get down by 10, everyone wants to hit that 10-point shot that doesn’t exist.”
Sophomore guard Isaac Sytsma sparked the comeback with eight points in the third quarter, part of his team-high 18 in the loss. Fellow sophomore Tyler Scheidt finished with 14.
After the game, Heckard pointed to the improvement of Highland, which lost 57-41 to Morton back in December.
“It’s heartbreaking now,” he said. “But they’ll soon realize, if they haven’t already realized it, how far we’ve come as a team from Day 1.”
Dave Melton is a freelance writer for the Post-Tribune.