Lawrence High's Bobby Davis (20) tries to get after a Shawnee Mission West ballhandler during the game Wednesday, March 4, 2009, at Lawrence High.

Lawrence High senior Dorian Green has been part of plenty of buzzer-beaters before. But never quite like this.

Wednesday night at LHS, Green and the third-seeded Lions (13-8) advanced to Friday’s sub-state championship game with a 28-26 victory against No. 6 seed Shawnee Mission West. But not before surviving one of the most unusual finishes the Jungle ever has staged.

With LHS leading by two — 28-26 — with a little more than two minutes to play, SM West forced the Lions into their third turnover of the fourth quarter and took possession with 2:09 remaining.

“It didn’t occur to me that that would be our last possession,” LHS coach Chris Davis said. “I figured that since they were down two, they were going to have to attack.”

Not even close.

West — as it had done all game — held the ball for nearly a minute before calling a timeout with 1:10 to play. At that point, the speculation about this being the final possession was validated. The Vikings indeed were holding for the last shot. The only questions were: Would it go in, and would it be a two or a three?

It turned out to be neither.

When the Lions extended their zone defense to a man-to-man with 37 seconds to play, the Vikings’ offense sped up. Advantage Lions. Instead of passively lobbing the ball around the perimeter and waiting for a crack to appear, West was forced to attack.

They did.

But as junior Bradley Foss drove to the basket, Green slipped in front of him and forced him to cough it up. As he did, Green got a hand on the ball, which bounced into the hands of 5-foot-7 point guard Brayden Clark under the basket. That could’ve been great news for the Vikings, but Clark never cleanly possessed the ball. Instead, a mad scramble ensued, and the final seconds ticked away.

“I actually had the ball,” Green said. “I knew the time was winding down, and I was just going to lay on it until the game was over. That was a weird ending.”

To understand how both teams got to that point, one must only take a look at each team’s first-quarter possessions. While the Lions looked to push the tempo at every opportunity — and did with varying degrees of success — West was content to pass the ball around and fire up three-pointers. The Vikings passed the ball more than 13 times per trip on eight different first-half possessions, including a whopping 23-pass possession to close the first half.

Their patience yielded four turnovers and four three-pointers, but the Lions led by five at the break thanks to a 5-0 run that closed the half.

“If the other team is going to pass the ball 30 times per possession, your defense has to be extremely sound,” Davis said. “And I thought we played excellent defense tonight. Our guys shifted right all the time.”

The Lions went cold at the start of the second half, and the Vikings tied the game at 17 five minutes into the third quarter. It didn’t take LHS long to regain its lead. On the possession after Foss tied the game, LHS senior Lance Kilburn scored his only bucket of the game to give LHS a 19-17 lead. Green scored the final five points of the quarter, and LHS led, 24-17, after three.

“It wasn’t pretty, but every time we had to have something, we found a way,” Davis said.

That included the fourth quarter — and the defensive stop at the end.

“I know this one was boring to watch, and, at times, it was boring to play,” Green said. “But it’s a win. In my mind, the official made the right call at the end, but I’m a little biased.”

Green led all scorers with 15 points. Jon Brown (14) and Matt Kieffer (10) led the Vikings (9-12).

Next up, LHS will play No. 2 SM East (15-6) at 5 p.m. Friday at Free State High. The winner advances to next week’s Class 6A state tournament in Emporia.