How Schulters Game Winning Three to Beat Colonia in 2018 GMCT Final Was Almost Not Caught on Video
SOUTH PLAINFIELD, NJ—It has been two years since K-Shawn Schulters connected on an incredible 35 foot shot to defeat Colonia to lift St. Joseph’s to the 2018 Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament Championship, and there is a bit of a story about that shot from my perspective that not many if any people know about.
It was almost not captured on video. At least not by GMC Hoops. If that had happened, it would have been the second straight 2018 GMCT game that I would have not captured the ending of on video. If you recall, I didn’t get the last second shot by Luke Fresco to defeat Carteret in the semifinal round. I thought I had gotten it, but the camera had been actually causing me trouble for much of the last month of the season.
First and foremost, I had shot a lot of video on that camera up to that point in the season. I was running out of storage on my cell phone. There were also issues with the touchscreen as well. It wasn’t very responsive, and there was the issue of how I was holding the camera. I wasn’t using a stabilizing gimbal at the time, and I was handling the camera in such a way that it made things difficult to shoot video.
A foreshadowing of what happened at the end of the 2018 GMCT Semifinals between Carteret and St. Joseph’s almost happened a few weeks earlier in a GMC Gold Division Game between East Brunswick Tech and Highland Park at Highland Park. The Owls had led the game late, but EB Tech had a chance to win, and got off a last second shot that just missed. Fortunately for me at the time, the shot didn’t go in because for some reason, I didn’t record it on my cell phone’s camera.
While I was lucky things had worked out the way they did, I knew that the way things were going with the phone, I had a feeling that the problem I had encountered at the end of the East Brunswick Tech-Highland Park game was going to happen again, and in a much more important game. Unfortunately for me, the premonition that I had that night in Highland Park did become reality.
During the course of the season, I had purchased another camera. Not a video camera, but a more of a professional photo camera, which also had the ability to shoot video as well. It would be a huge help in the GMCT Championship since it helped by me a little time while I was having issues with the cell phone camera. More on that in a bit.
The day after the GMCT semifinal game between Carteret and St. Joseph’s, I had to go to work, which is another reason I was running out of storage on my phone. I didn’t have as much as I would like to clean up my phone. I also had to turn around, and get back out to another game. This game, while not as important in terms of being a GMCT Semifinal, or Championship, it was still significant since a player, Branden Barnes, a senior at Piscataway Tech, was going for his 1,000th point against Spotswood.
It was a very warm muggy day. The temperature got as high as 78 degrees, and the game was scheduled to start at 4:00 PM at Piscataway Tech. I got out of work early to cover the game. Spotswood came out flying in the contest, and played an up-tempo, full court style. Barnes, the older brother of Edison’s Niko Barnes, was rebounding like a beast, but struggled to get on the board for much of the first half.
Barnes would eventually accomplish the milestone on a free throw in the third quarter. I followed that up by going over to Perth Amboy High School to take in action in the 2018 Perth Amboy/GMC Freshmen Tournament. Bishop Ahr was playing Sayreville in the Championship Game, and eventually won behind the trio of Danny Golaszewski, Elijah Lane, and Terrell Henderson. I felt better since being able to cover those games, and capture Branden Barnes’ personal milestone helped me feel good about myself again after feeling pretty low.
The night of the GMCT Championship, I was in a bit of a rush as always to get over to the RAC. First I had to put together the preview of the Championship Game for the web site. Usually, that takes up a lot of time, and remember, I had a job, and was at work. So, once I got the preview done, I had to gather up my gear, and get over to the RAC. I settled in for the game with James Corrigan, who was still doing radio broadcasts of the games back then on Spreaker.
While James was doing the play-by-play for the radio broadcast, I was shooting video and photos, and posting updates to twitter. As the game progressed, unbeknownst to me I was running very low on free space on the cell phone. As the game picked up in the fourth quarter with Colonia rallying from a 19 point, 35-16 deficit to take the lead, the phone ran out of storage. I frantically scrambled to delete clips off the phone. In addition, I took video clips with the professional photo camera that I had brought to at least get some of the action down the stretch.
With about two minutes remaining in regulation, I managed to free up enough space on the cell phone to get the ending, which was thrilling. Chad Baker, who recently committed to Duquense, connected on a jumper with a little more than a minute left to give Colonia a three point lead. Schulters, which has committed to Villanova to play football, got the Falcons going again though by getting and an one to tie the game at 43-43, and then took an inbounds pass with several seconds to play, and launched the iconic buzzer beater for the 46-43 win that continued the Falcons dynasty for another season.
Although the quality of the video wasn’t as good as I would have liked it to be since I was sitting up in the press area on the side opposite of the team benches, and I shot the video in 1080p instead of the 4K 60 frames per second that I use now. The video was also shaky since I wasn’t using the gimbal so I had to utilize stabilizing software, which also degraded the quality of the video. Still, I managed to capture this special moment, and post it to twitter.
Prior to the start of the 2018-19 season, and during the 2018 GMC football season, I purchased a new cell phone, an iPhone XS Max, with 512 GB of storage, so that I can shoot more quality pictures and video, and not have to worry about running out of space. I followed that up by purchasing a stabilizing gimbal, which ultimately made my life much easier.