As his team's ear-splitting celebration carried on in the locker room moments after a dramatic region tournament win Tuesday night, Tyner boys' basketball coach E'Jay Ward stepped aside for a brief few minutes of solitude. Ward bowed his head in prayer before finally being overcome by emotion, pressing both hands tightly against his face as he sobbed.
Moments earlier, on the floor of an East Ridge High School gym packed with fans, junior guard Melique Hambrick had banked in a 3-pointer as the buzzer sounded to lift the Rams to a dramatic 53-52 win over Red Bank.
After pausing to collect his thoughts, wiping tears from both cheeks, Ward needed only one word - a name - to explain his thoughts.
"Javon," Ward said, shaking his head. "One of the first things I thought of after that shot was Javon. He would've been a huge part of this celebration. He's still a part of this team, man. A huge part of all of us. Javon made sure that shot went in."
As a sophomore, Javon Craddock was the youngest starter on a Tyner team that reached the state tournament during the 2017-18 season. Possessing a pure shooting touch and a wide smile, he was already garnering attention from college scouts, and teammates gravitated to him.
E'Jay Ward stopped to pray after his team made the game-winning shot in a dramatic game against Red Bank Tuesday night. Staff photo by Stephen Hargis. 
Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / Tyner's Melique Hambrick (0) is congratulated by the crowd after making a last second three-point shot to win the game 53-52 over Red Bank. The Red Bank Lions faced the Tyner Rams in the semifinal game of the 3-AA basketball tournament at East Ridge High School on March 3, 2020. But during a pickup game at the Highland Park Boys & Girls Club on a warm May evening just days before the end of the 2018 school year, the 16-year old Craddock collapsed after complaining of fatigue. He never regained consciousness and an autopsy later revealed a rare disorder - hypertrophic cardiomyopathy - that causes a thickening of the heart muscle had been the cause of death.
"There isn't a day that goes by that I don't still think about that kid," Ward added, noting Craddock would have been a senior this season. "It might be during a practice or just walking the halls at the school. The guys on our team and everybody that knew him loved Javon, man."
After trailing by as many as nine points in the third quarter, Tyner rallied in the fourth Tuesday, and the teams eventually traded the lead six times. Lucas Brown connected on two free throws with seven seconds remaining to give Red Bank a two-point advantage, but during a timeout just before Tyner's final possession, Ward looked around the team's huddle and pleaded: "We need somebody to go do something special."
As Hambrick looked for a teammate to pass to in the closing seconds, he bobbled the ball before regaining control just in time to get the shot off before the buzzer sounded.
"I knew in my head that most of the time had ticked off and I needed to just take the shot," Hambrick said of his only points of the game. "This is an amazing feeling. I've never hit a game-winner like that. We were down, but this just shows that we're not backing down from nobody."
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293. Follow him on Twitter @StephenHargis.