ADAMS TWP — Knoch boys basketball coach Les Shoop has been on the bench for 37 years.

In all that time, he has never seen anything like what happened in the final seconds Friday night at Mars High.

"What a way to end my career at Mars," Shoop said as he walked out of the triumphant Knoch locker room following a 53-51 win made possible by a goaltending call on the game's final shot. "Hopefully, they won't all end like this. I won't make it."

The game lived up to its billing of two evenly matched teams with a lot at stake. Knoch had perhaps the most to lose, entering the game with a disappointing 2-3 section record.

And it had a wild ending fitting of a Friday the 13th.

With the score tied in the waning seconds of the game, Knoch's Alex Whisler pulled down a rebound off a missed shot by Mars senior guard Tim Frye and quickly tossed it to Rob Briggs, who fed it to Bill Elliot up court.

Elliott caught the ball, took a dribble and laid the ball up as the final two seconds ticked down. Trailing on the play was Mars sophomore Steve Cress, who pinned the basketball to the backboard as the buzzer sounded.

Officials ruled it was goaltending to give Knoch the win, sending the Knights into a frenzy of celebration on the court while the Mars bench and fans looked dumbfounded.

"It was goaltending. There was no doubt about it," Shoop said. "I thought it was the right call to make. Of course, if it happened to me, I might have though it was the wrong call."

Mars coach Rob Carmody was less dismayed by the call and more perturbed by the fact his team didn't get back on defense after the Frye miss.

"We control whether or not we are back," Carmody said. "It's a fundamental play."

Both teams gave each other their best shots. Knoch raced out early, only to watch the Planets go on a 12-0 run to take an eight-point lead early in the second quarter.

Knoch (10-4, 3-3) also frittered away a big advantage in the second half, watching a nine-point lead shrink to nothing.

"It was a great high school game," Shoop said. "Big crowd. Back and forth. I couldn't ask for anything more."

Both teams' big scorers had off nights.

Knoch's Jordan Shoop finished with 14 points on 7-of-19 shooting. Mars' Tim Frye ended up with just eight points, shooting 4-of-16 from the field.

With the two leading scorers struggling, it opened the stage for the unsung heroes to shine.

Elliott scored 10 of his 14 points in the second quarter. His final two points were the biggest, though.

"They weren't guarding me," Elliott said. "They were guarding the people who score a lot, like Rob and Jordan. I was just hitting them. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't."

With Frye struggling for Mars (10-6, 3-3), Charlie Jaicks and Cress turned in stellar performances.

Jaicks scored eight of his 19 points in the first quarter and Cress ended up with 20 points and 14 rebounds.

"I tell you what, Steve Cress over the last month — if there is someone in our section playing better than him, I haven't seen him," Carmody said.

For Knoch, leaving Mars without a win would have spelled doom for its season.

"There was a sense of urgency," Shoop said. "If you go 2-4 in the first half, your chances of making the playoffs aren't very good. We wanted to compete and we competed."

For Mars, the loss presents Carmody with a kind of litmus test.

Adversity does that.

"We'll find out a lot about what kind of young men we have," Carmody said. "A loss like this does two things, it polarizes a team or it pulls everyone together. A good team, I think, learns from this thing and pulls together."

KNOCH 53Scott Muska 4-10 0-0 9, Jordan Shoop 7-19 0-0 14, Bill Elliott 6-12 0-0 14, Rob Briggs 4-11 2-4 10, Alex Whisler 3-7 0-2 6. Totals: 24-59 2-6 53

MARS 51Tim Frye 4-16 0-0 8, Robbie Herold 1-2 0-0 2, Charlie Jaicks 5-11 6-6 19, Steve Cress 9-15 2-2 20, Vinny Smith 1-4 0-0 2. Totals: 20-48 8-10 51

3-point goals: Muska, Elliott 2, Jaicks 3

JV: Knoch 45-35

Tuesday: Moon at Knoch

Friday: Deer Lakes at Mars