Amar Augillard put his head down and nodded with excitement while walking to the bench.
The Zion-Benton junior guard had just splashed in a rainbow 3-pointer to seemingly give his team a one-point lead against Libertyville with 63 seconds remaining in the Class 4A Warren Regional final on Friday night.
But the officials quickly waved off Augillard’s basket because Zion-Benton coach Bob Worthington had called a timeout.
“My coach didn’t believe I was going to hit it, so I surprised him a bit,” Augillard said, smiling.
After the timeout, he showed some moxie by breaking down his defender with a crossover and hitting a step-back 3-pointer with 52 seconds left.
He was feeling it.
Bouncing back from early foul trouble, Augillard scored the fifth-seeded Zee-Bees’ last nine points over the final 1:53 in a 51-49 win over the fourth-seeded Wildcats in front of a near-capacity crowd.
Augillard’s late-game heroics handed Zion-Benton (23-10) its first regional title in seven years. The Zee-Bees advance to play No. 1 seed Stevenson (26-4) in a Prospect Sectional semifinal at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
“It feels great to make history,” Augillard said.
Augillard, who finished with a team-high 15 points, acknowledged the inadvertent timeout “calmed me down and got me more focused into the game” after having difficulty finding his rhythm amid foul trouble over the first three quarters.
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Worthington said the timeout gave Augillard some confidence.
“I felt when he saw that ball go in, that’s a trigger for him,” Worthington said. “He’s a scorer who can shoot. The play was called, and he knocked it down. Credit to the kid. He’s a great young man and a good basketball player.
“He’s shown poise all year long. … This is a moment of growth with success.”
Kaleb Naylor added 12 points for Zion-Benton, and Damontae Taylor had 11 points — including three crowd-pleasing dunks — and nine rebounds.
“Kaleb Naylor also came up big tonight,” Worthington said. “Whenever you win a regional, it’s special. This belongs to them.”
The Wildcats (19-12) rode the hot-shooting of Will Moore to a 41-36 lead with 4:20 left. Moore scored a game-high 17 points.
But the Zee-Bees clamped down on defense and allowed just five points in the next seven possessions to set the stage for Augillard to add another chapter to his growing legacy.
“These guys are winners, and it’s hard to lose this game,” Libertyville coach Brian Zyrkowski said. “Amar hit that big three from pretty far out with a hand in his face. It was a big shot. … Our guys fought and were in position to win multiple times. Tonight, Will wanted the basketball, and he made huge plays for us.”
Bob Narang is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.