It looked bad for Chantilly, down 43-38 with just a couple minutes left in regulation. Then, it looked bad for Oakton, down 51-49 with just over a second left in the first overtime and the entire length of the floor to go. Then, it looked bad for Chantilly as Oakton scored the first four points in double overtime. Then, well, it just actually was bad for Chantilly.
Almost as if answering a challenge to make the Oakton-Chantilly boys game even more exciting than the harrowing girls game right before, the Oakton boys defeated Chantilly 64-56 in double overtime Friday night. The most stunning play was Oakton’s Paul Campo, a quarterback on the football team, throwing a beautiful pass the length of the floor to fellow junior Charlie Smith at the end of the first overtime. Smith then calmly drained a shot just inside the arc to tie things up.
“Paul couldn’t have given me a better pass than that,” Smith said after the game. “I knew right as I let it go that it was going in even as I was fading away. That was just an awesome feeling.”
It was quite a spectacle to first see Smith’s teammates embrace him after the shot, followed by the Oakton fans who rushed onto the court erroneously thinking it was a three-pointer and the game was over. It was even more rewarding to see Smith’s actual family embrace him when the game actually was over.
It was a long hard fight to arrive at the favorable outcome for Smith’s Cougars. Chantilly led big early, always a bad thing for a team that plays as much zone as Oakton when there’s no shot clock. The Chargers had a nine-point lead in the second quarter when the Cougars mounted a strong rally in no small part to the play of reserves Micah Johnson-Parrotte and Curtis Holland. They actually took the lead at 27-25, but a bad foul on a three-point attempt by Chantilly’s Bret Caslavka left Oakton down by one at the half.
The game was nip-and-tuck until Oakton’s defense stepped up with about six minutes left in the fourth quarter and the Cougars trailing 38-36. A Jacob Posz three-point play started a 7-0 Cougar run over the next four minutes. But a three-pointer by Chantilly’s Christian Parana, an offensive foul by Oakton and a basket by the Chargers’ Elijah Ford knotted the game at 43, where it stayed for the rest of regulation.
After the Cougars escaped the loss in the first overtime through the heroics of Campo and Smith, the momentum was all theirs. Posz scored his team’s first four points in the second OT, and once again Oakton’s defense stepped up to frustrate the Chargers. Chantilly really didn’t have a particularly good shooting night, missing a lot of lay-ups and fairly open three-point shots. That caught up to the visitors eventually.
The Chargers (6-3, 14-7) had four players score in double figures, led by Parana’s 13. The loss was especially costly as it put Chantilly a game behind Centreville for the lead in Conference 5. For Oakton sharp-shooter Braeden Johnson led the way with 23 24 points, stepping up time after time when the Chargers threatened to go on a run. Posz contributed 14 points and just as importantly, 11 rebounds. Although the Cougars are a tall team, that’s always a key for a team that mostly plays zone.
Oakton (3-6, 13-7) remains tied with Westfield at the conference’s bottom, but the win definitely gives coach David Brooks’ team confidence going forward. It’s apparent that there’s no clear-cut dominant team in the conference, and the Cougars, who had a lot of early season success and are now playing well again, could be as big a threat as anybody to win the old Concorde–even as a low seed.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” a visibly drained Brooks said after the long game. “We obviously want to be playing our best basketball at the end of the season and we did a great job competing tonight. We made some mental and physical mistakes during the game but we were able to overcome that.”
The Cougars did get by, but they might not have been able to do so without one Charlie Smith.
–Chris Jollay
all statistics are unofficial
| OAKTON | FG | FT | TP | RB | AST | |
| BRIGGS | 0-4 | 0-0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | |
| JOHNSON | 8-19 | 4-5 | 24 | 5 | 0 | |
| DIGBY | 2-4 | 0-0 | 4 | 1 | 0 | |
| SMITH | 3-4 | 2-2 | 9 | 5 | 4 | |
| POSZ | 5-12 | 3-7 | 14 | 11 | 0 | |
| Johnson-Parrotte | 3-5 | 1-2 | 7 | 2 | 6 | |
| Holland | 3-4 | 0-0 | 6 | 4 | 0 | |
| Campo | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| TOTALS | 24-52 | 10-16 | 64 | 32 | 12 | |
| Threes: Johnson 4-10, Smith 1-2, Posz 1-3, Briggs 0-2 | ||||||
| CHANTILLY | FG | FT | TP | RB | AST | |
| PARANA | 4-14 | 3-5 | 13 | 1 | 2 | |
| CARMICHAEL | 4-7 | 3-5 | 11 | 7 | 0 | |
| CASLAVKA | 2-12 | 6-8 | 12 | 8 | 2 | |
| MCHUGH | 4-13 | 1-2 | 10 | 6 | 0 | |
| FORD | 3-11 | 2-4 | 8 | 8 | 1 | |
| Chudasama | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Nas | 1-2 | 0-2 | 2 | 4 | 0 | |
| TOTALS | 18-60 | 15-26 | 56 | 34 | 5 | |
| Threes: Parana 2-8, Caslavka 2-10, McHugh 1-4, Chudasama 0-1 | ||||||