Storm Jipson saw a ball going out of bounds and knew he had to do something with the first quarter clock winding down.
Running towards the scorer’s table at half court, Jipson reached out and threw a hook shot falling out of bounds towards the hoop. Nothing but net.
The shot has thousands of views on Twitter, as a parent caught the shot while filming the game. It also has made ESPN’s SportsCenter Top-10 at the No. 5 spot.
Jipson’s miracle shot wasn’t all luck, though.
“In practice I shoot a ton of half-courters, regular, running off one foot,” Jipson said. “I always say I’m one of the best half-court shooters and (head coach Mike Adams) always says, ‘If it comes down to the end, then I’ll let you shoot it.’”
Jipson’s half-court shot was the product of hundreds of attempts in practice, and he has a worthy competitor most days in junior varsity coach Tim Mains.
“Me and Timmy like to compete and see who can hit more in a row and it’s a big argument between the two of us,” Jipson said.
When Mains played at EL, he and some teammates made some trick shot videos called “SHOTS ‘R’ US” which garnered tens of thousands of views and an appearance on ESPN. Jipson is well aware of Mains’ shot-making and said his coach is the better half-court heaver.
“We do the trick shots and I’ve always taken a lot of pride at being a halfcourt shooter,” Mains said. “When I was a player, I would take 5-10 after every practice. Pretty much when our practices overlap we shoot and we usually bet 50 push-ups, best out of five or first one to make it.”
Mains and Adams both claim that Jipson is the better half-court shooter, as much as it pains Timmy to admit.
“It kills me to say it but I think Storm beats me more than I beat him,” Mains said.
“Storm is probably, no joke, the best half-court shooter I’ve ever coached,” Adams said.
SMOOTH TRANSITION
The Spruce Mountain and Gray-New Gloucester boys basketball teams share two important similarities — a potent transition and damaging outside shooting game.
The Phoenix and the Patriots demonstrated those two successful options of attack the past week.
Spruce was taking a big hit from Hall-Dale’s rebounding for most of last Tuesday’s game before the Phoenix opened up on the Bulldogs in the fourth quarter. The Phoenix went on to win, 61-44.
“(Hall-Dale) is big,” Spruce Mountain coach Scott Bessey said. “Even their guards are very physical and athletic. They rebound really, really well.
“So we knew that was going to be a factor. “I think once we started rebounding better, we were able to get out and transition and I think that’s when the game got away from them a little bit.
Finding the tempo led to other good things for the Phoenix.
“We want to get out and run. We have good, solid defense,” Bessey said. “We obviously played our matchup zone, but we want to force contested shots, we want to rebound and then we want to push. The rhythm and tempo got in our favor. Brandon Frey and Jack Bryant started getting loose. We actually got some big second-chance points and we actually made our free throws, too.”
G-NG’s run-and-gun offense ran into some tough opposition from the rugged Lake Region Lakers on Friday.
In the second half, the Patriots opened up from the perimeter, with Jay Hawkes knocking down five of G-NG’s nine 3-pointers.
“The first half, we ran well,” Patriots coach Ryan Deschenes said, “but they are so long and big they were contesting our shots. We weren’t making the right reads. The second half, we got in the paint off our drives, made the right reads…and did a nice job with that.”
The Patriots pulled away for a 70-56 win.
“They have firepower from a bunch of different spots,” Lake Region coach Ryan Martin said. “They are tough team to guard because you know they have shooters. They can score in so many different ways. They are tough to stop.”
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