Call it the shot heard around Black Butte.
Mount Shasta senior Gene Kenyon etched his name into local sporting lore when he made it from beyond the top of the key Friday night in the Weed High School gymnasium.
The stands were packed, the gymnasium stage was overflowing and fans stood along the walls. Student cheering sections on opposite sides of the court had been taking turns all game vocalizing their claims of supremacy.
Defending league champion Mount Shasta needed a victory to share the Shasta Cascade League championship with Weed, which had already earned a spot on top for the first time in 21 years.
Weed’s Jake West brought Cougar fans to a roar when he banked one in on a baseline drive to give the home team a 48-45 lead with 18 seconds to play.
Kenyon, his head tilted back, his arms rising straight up, missed a three-point try, but the Bears got the rebound and got the ball back to him. The noise level went through the roof when his second try went through the hoop with :02 showing on the scoreboard clock.
Kenyon also got fouled on the play, but didn't convert. The crowd was quiet as a length of the court heave by Weed’s Robert West looked from some angles like it had a chance.
Kenyon the scored two points in OT, and Mount Shasta’s Tim Jaegel, who lives in Weed and remains good friends with his Cougar foes, added the final two free throws in a 55-52 Bears’ victory.
There’s nothing new about a loud and crowded gymnasium for a Weed-Mount Shasta basketball game, but few have been this dramatic with this much on the line.
Both teams are champions, but you wouldn't have known it in the bedlam that followed the game.
Mount Shasta fans poured from the stands like lava to join a bouncing and screaming huddle of players. They beamed with index fingers raised as a team photo was taken.
The Cougars, for the moment, found little joy in having their team photo taken.
For fans, it didn’t matter which side of the Black Butte plug dome volcano you came from, you knew you had seen something special. “That was a great game!” was a typical response heard from fans of both teams.
Mount Shasta senior Erik Thelander, the 2009 SCL most valuable player, led all scorers with 26 points, including a slam dunk in the second quarter while the Bears were building a 10-point half time lead.
Weed, Calif. —
