Nine sec­onds. That’s all the time the Bulldogs had to pre­vent a dev­as­tat­ing loss to rival Grand Valley at the 131 Showdown at Van Andel Arena on Saturday.

Trailing 67–65 with only sec­onds left in reg­u­la­tion, the Bulldogs turned to their senior leader forward/center Justin Keenan with the game on the line. Keenan had a look on the base­line and put up a jumper that was slightly off the mark.

But Ferris pounded the boards after the missed shot, as it did all game with a 49–34 rebound­ing advan­tage, and junior guard Dontae Molden made arguably the biggest play of the game with a tip-in with just one sec­ond left to send the con­test to overtime.

“It wasn’t any­thing I drew up, let me tell you,” said Ferris head coach Bill Sall after the game. “That’s a whale of a putback.”

The 15^th-ranked Lakers couldn’t stop the Ferris momen­tum after that, as senior guard Darien Gay came out fir­ing by scor­ing the first five points of over­time and the Bulldogs con­verted seven-of-12 free throws to clinch a dra­matic 79–72 vic­tory in front of the 5,863 peo­ple in attendance.

The mon­u­men­tal win put Ferris into a tie with Grand Valley atop the GLAIC North Division with both teams at 10–2 in con­fer­ence play. It also marked the sixth-straight win for the Bulldogs and the eighth win in nine games.

Keenan again led the Bulldogs’ effort with a game-high 24 points along with 12 rebounds in his home­town of Grand Rapids. But fel­low senior guard Matt DeHart played the game of his Ferris career with a career-high 21 points as DeHart nailed six shots from beyond the arc. DeHart also tacked on eight rebounds and four steals.

“Coach always told me, ‘You’re a shooter, just keep shoot­ing,’” said DeHart. “I’m glad that I could con­tribute and help my team to this win; it’s a big win for us.”

Gay posted 12 points, five of them in over­time, and Molden had a solid effort with eight points, six rebounds and six assists on top of his late-game heroics.

Grand Valley was paced by senior Justin Ringler’s 20 points and eight rebounds before foul­ing out in the over­time while junior James Thomas chipped in 18 points.

“I told our guys that we have to move on,” said Grand Valley head coach Ric Wesley. “We have two road games next week and that’s our focus.”

Although the Bulldogs were relent­less on the boards all night, they specif­i­cally dom­i­nated the offen­sive glass with a 22–5 advan­tage in offen­sive rebounds to set up 14 second-chance points.

“That’s one thing I like about our bas­ket­ball team is that we’re men­tally tough,” said Sall. “They won’t go down and they just keep fighting.”

The two teams will meet again in the regular-season finale at Ferris’ Jim Wink Arena on Feb. 26 in a game that could decide who wins the GLIAC.

The Bulldogs will hit the road fol­low­ing one of the most mem­o­rable games in pro­gram his­tory in recent mem­ory, as they will travel to Sault Ste. Marie to face off against Lake Superior State in a GLIAC con­test on

Thursday. n