Austin Burton hit a three-quarter court three-pointer at the buzzer to give Wabash College a 73-72 road win at Hiram Friday night.
 
Burton snared the rebound off a missed free throw by Jeremiah Thomas with 1.6 seconds left in the game. He took two dribbles then fired the shot from the Hiram three-point line to the other end of the court and swished as the horn sounded for the win.
 
"I knew I didn't have a lot of time," Burton said. "There's not much you can do. I just let it fly. I knew it had a chance. It was online. I knew it had chance, but I didn't know how good it was until it went right through the basket. I really don't think I believed it was going to happen. I've never hit a shot like that in my career."
 
The basket erased what could have been a bad road loss for Wabash. The Little Giants owned a 15-point lead in the first half, up 27-12 with 6:22 left in the opening period. Hiram's offense took over from that point forward, going on a 21-5 run for a one-point lead before Daniel Purvlicis hit a free throw in the final seconds of the period to end the half in a 33-33 tie. The Terriers scored the first two baskets of the second period and eventually claimed an eight-point lead before the Little Giants closed the gap.
 
With Hiram leading 70-65 with 46 seconds left to play, Purvlicis connected on a free throw attempt to cut the lead to four. The junior missed the second free throw, forcing the Little Giants to foul immediately to stop the clock. The Terriers' Joe Caspio hit one of two attempts to push the score to 71-66. Kyle Aiton was fouled on the ensuing offensive series and hit a pair of free throws to trim the lead to three points.
 
The Wabash defense stepped up on the very next play. Pressure from Burton forced a pass underneath the Wabash basket that was stolen by Houston Hodges. The Little Giants fired two three-point tries but came up empty before Purvlicis tipped in the second miss to make it a one-point contest with two seconds remaining.
 
Burton fouled Thomas immediately when the ball was inbounded, stopping the clock with 1.6 seconds left. Thomas hit the first but missed the second, setting up the shocking end-of-game thriller.
 
For the Little Giants it was another prime of example of the school's two mottos — Wabash Always Fights and Always Means Always.
 
"Man we just stole one," Wabash head coach Kyle Brumett said. "We didn't play very well. We have great kids. There was some good karma for the Little Giants here today. It wasn't just the shot at the end of the game. We had all kinds of opportunities in the last minute and a half to say 'we're going to lose a bad one on the road and we've got to play again tomorrow.' But they didn't. They just kept plugging. They kept fighting and listening. They kept trying to make plays. Everything has to fit together to give yourself a chance to throw one in like that."
 
Purvlicis led Wabash in scoring with 22 points while playing all 40 minutes of the game. Oetting added 18 points for the Little Giants. Marcus Kammrath, who earned his first start of the year after Daniel Scofield was unable to play due to illness, answered the call by scoring a career-best 16 points to top his previous best effort of 10 points. Aiton added 10 points for the winning Wabash effort.
 
JJ Woodson scored 17 points for Hiram (9-11, 3-10 NCAC), while Kyle Deckard finished with 13.
 
The celebration for Wabash will be short lived. The Little Giants play at Allegheny College (10-10, 7-6 NCAC) Saturday at 3 p.m. to complete the doubleheader road trip. The Gators lost 60-56 to DePauw Friday night, giving Wabash sole possession of third place in the latest North Coast Athletic Conference standings.
 
"This is a tough trip," Brumett said. "The good thing about this group is they know we didn't play well. It's great that we got the win and ended the way it did. But we didn't play great. We have to quickly turn the page to play better, to figure out what DePauw did tonight to win and what did Allegheny do that we can work with. There's a lot of work to do."