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Brookshaw's shot for the ages gives Prescott a thrilling Division 3 title

03/17/2018, 10:00pm CDT
By Dick Knapinski

The two best players. Two big shots. The way state championships are supposed to finish.

Peter Brookshaw’s contested three-pointer at the buzzer (see video below) countered a three by Valders’ Kyle Tuma with 10 seconds left to give Prescott a thrilling 63-62 win for the Division 3 state championship.

“That just happened?” asked Cardinals coach Nick Johnson after a tense game ended on an unforgettable flurry in the final seconds. “Unbelievable. Unbelievable game, you talk about the swings of the game. We’re up, they come back, take a big lead on us, we come back, and then …”

Yeah, and then. While the first 35 minutes and 45 seconds plenty of highlights, the final 15 seconds of this game provided what will be remembered.

Valders (24-4), the top-seeded team in the Division 3 field, led 57-50 with 3:15 left before Prescott came back. A layup by Joe Roosen with 32 seconds left ended the Cardinals’ 10-2 run and gave them a 60-59 advantaged.

“We weren’t going to wait for a last-second shot, obviously,” Valders coach Trevor Schwoerer said. “We were going to run some early offense to see if we could get a good look.”

It was a perfect look for the Vikings, with a drive into the lane drawing defensive help and opening a wing shot for Tuma, who scored 31 of his game-high 35 points in the second half.

“I knew we needed a spark, so I tried to get to the basket because they were tight on me,” he said of his second-half scoring flurry. “I was trying to get good shots, because we had that 10-point deficit.”

Tuma’s three-pointer from the left wing was perfect to put Valders up 62-60 with 13 seconds left.

That left plenty of time for Prescott, though. The Cardinals (26-2) hurried downcourt with Peter Brookshaw, whose 28 points Saturday gave him 62 for the tournament, setting a Division 3 record that had stood since Kohler’s Joe Wolf scored 58 points in two games in 1982.

“I was trying to get up the court as fast as I could,” Brookshaw said. “I saw there were eight seconds left. Then I tried to get as good of a look as I could. I knew I wasn’t going to get a great look, obviously, but I just put it up there and it went in for us.”

The look was similar to the three-pointer Sheboygan Lutheran’s Sam Dekker tossed in for the Division 5 championship in 2012. The shot, in fact, came from nearly the same spot.

“I think I was watching that live,” Brookshaw said of that moment six years ago. “It’s crazy to think that it’s almost the same shot to win the state championship.”

Parker Nielsen added 13 points and Brian Tayson 11 for Prescott, which lost to Xavier in the Division 3 title game last year.

Treyner Sundsmo added 11 points for Valders, which was making its first state tourney appearance since 1984. The Vikings have appeared at state four times, finishing second on each occasion.

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