EDWARDSVILLE – Preston Weaver, a senior forward for the Edwardsville High School boys basketball team, scored eight points in the Tigers' second semifinal win over Belleville West Friday evening at Lucco-Jackson Gym. But it was his final two points that made the difference, as his basket with 2.1 seconds left was the climax of a comeback, where Edwardsville trailed by 10 points at halftime, but rallied to defeat the Maroons 36-34.
The win advanced Edwardsville to the final of the Southwestern Conference boys postseason tournament, where they'll host East St. Louis, a 52-46 upset winner at top-seeded Belleville East Saturday afternoon, starting at 3 p.m.
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Hitting the game-winning shot to bring the Tigers through to the final is an incredible feeling on Weaver's part, but he gave credit to the team effort throughout the game.
"Yeah, it's always great to hit that shot," Weaver said in a postgame interview, "but it was a team effort. We really fought our way back in the third quarter, and in the fourth, we gave ourselves a chance to win."
Edwardsville trailed the Maroons 23-13 at halftime after being outscored 11-0 in the second quarter, but came back to within 34-32 after three quarters, and won the game in the final seconds. The win speaks volumes about the team's character and resiliency, a trademark throughout the 2020-21 season.
"Yeah, we're a resilient bunch," Weaver said, "we're going to go down swinging. We're going to fight to that last buzzer, and that's what we did tonight."
Weaver described his winning shot as an opportunity created when the play that was called broke down.
"Our out of bounds play broke down," Weaver said, "so I went out to grab the ball, I saw that I had an open lane to the left, I ripped it and drove left, shot-faked, got him up in the air, and had a pretty wide-open lay-up."
The game wasn't quite over yet, and Ty Lampley hit a half-court shot at the buzzer that brought back bad memories of Ethyn Brown's buzzer beater two weeks earlier at Belleville East. This time though, the shot didn't get off in time, and was waved off by the officials.
"Yeah, I was getting flashbacks to East," Weaver said with a laugh. "Definitely a good feeling to know that it wasn't off in time."
The Tigers now host the Flyers in Saturday's final, and for his and the five other seniors final game, Weaver is expecting another tough one.
"Of course," Weaver said. "But we're going to try out best, and we're going to end my career, end out season, we're going out trying out best."
To play his final game at home before the Tiger fans will make the game even more special to Weaver.
"Yeah, I love playing at home," Weaver said, "I love our fans. So huge blessing to get to play here tomorrow."
