It was just one of those shots, the kind that would change everything one way or another, and it did for Bethlehem Catholic’s girls’ basketball team when Taliyah Medina hit a three pointer with 40 seconds left in a one-point game with Allentown Central Catholic last Friday night at Liberty High School.

“My teammates were telling me my dad [coach Jose Medina] said pull it out, but you know, the adrenaline and momentum of the game, you don’t hear anything sometimes, so if I would have missed that, oh, I would have been dead. So when I made that, all I could do was just pump my fist. He was yelling, everybody on the bench jumped up. It was absolutely amazing,” Taliyah Medina said.

Forty seconds later, the Hawks were crowned East Penn Conference champions with a 40-37 victory over the Vikettes.

“That was one of those shots. It’s a big shot,” said Coach Medina. “I mean, it’s one that, obviously for us, I’m not gonna’ lie, we wanted to push the ball back out, but we train these kids all season that if they see something they like, we’re gonna’ go with what they see, and you know, she saw something she liked and she trusted the training, and as a coach, I’ve got to support her. I said Wow. Wow. Wow. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it.”

From that point on, the Vikettes fouled the Hawks over and over, and with 10 seconds left, Hope Brown made two free throws before Central’s Diana Kocsis hit a three pointer as time ran out, but by then, it was Becahi’s championship.

The first quarter ended in a 12-12 tie, and the Hawks led 20-17 at halftime but hoped to have a bigger lead by then.

“We knew they were going to come to win it because they wanted it just as bad as we did,” Taliyah Medina said. “Being able to slow the game down, and not let it get into our head, and not let the crowd get into our head, and play our game, we did that very well, and I think that’s why we won.”

The Hawks were able to keep Central’s Jess Davis under control offensively, something that was difficult for Freedom in its 49-32 semifinal loss to Central two night earlier, but Kocsis and Margeaux Eripret made up for that with 23 points between them.

Becahi still led by three points at the end of the third quarter, and Kocsis’s three pointer tied the game early in the fourth.

With 3:30 left, Becahi’s Morgan Orloski recovered a near-turnover, and then did it again, resulting in a layup for Jaleesa Lanier.

“Davis drove and as she was coming up, I grabbed the ball, ripped it out of her hands, and as I was doing that, I lost my balance, and I threw it up to Abby [Brown],” Orloski said. “When it comes to the end, we’re all, like, we’ll sacrifice, do whatever we have to do to win the game.”

It was Davis who scored with 1:15 left in the game to bring the Vikettes to within one point, trailing the Hawks 35-34, but then there was Medina’s shot, just one of those shots that changed everything.