A marquee moment for a marquee player

TOMS RIVER, N.J. - Take an entire four-year career and boil it down to one game.

The state championship game.

Take the state championship game and chop it down to one half.

The second half.

Take the second half of the state championship game and squeeze it down to one moment.

The moment that re-defined Isaiah Morton's four-year career.

His coach was thinking, "No."

His teammates were thinking, "No."

Everybody in Poland Spring Arena was thinking, "No."

Morton stepped behind the three-point line and said, "Yes."

"I've made big shots before," Morton said with a smile and shrug. "I figured, 'What the heck.' "

That's not what St. Augustine coach Paul Rodio was thinking.

"It was no, no, no - yes, yes, yes," Rodio said after his team's 71-60 victory over Seton Hall Prep in the Non-Public A state final. "I couldn't believe he took that shot."

St. Augustine senior forward Charlie Monaghan, who has been hamming-and-egging with Morton for four years, couldn't believe it, either.

"It was one of the craziest shots I've ever seen," Monaghan said. "We all were like, 'No' and then we were like, 'Yes,' and running back on defense."

The shot summed up Morton - the audacity to take it, the skill to make it.

This was the situation: St. Augustine's 15-point, fourth-quarter lead was down to 59-53. Seton Hall had all the momentum.

The Hermits were supposed to work the clock, move the ball, look for a layup or a trip to the foul line.

Morton had other ideas. He unleashed a three-pointer from the left side that hit nothing but net and gave the Hermits a 62-53 lead with 2 minutes, 35 seconds on the clock.

Game over.

Career made over.

"I thought I'd step back and take it," Morton said. "I felt confident."

It's the strangest thing, but after four seasons and more than 100 games and more than 2,200 career points, Morton still was a bit of an enigma when he walked into the arena Saturday.

But when he walked out, his legacy was secure. He is one of the best players in St. Augustine history, and one of the best players in Cape-Atlantic League history.

Those 2,220-plus points look a lot different in the light of a state title. This one game, this one performance, this one shot validated everything.

"I didn't want that shot," Rodio said. "But that's Isaiah."

Morton, who has signed with Marist, played a wonderful game. He outdueled Seton Hall's 6-foot-1 Sterling Gibbs in a battle of Division I-bound guards.

Gibbs needed 25 shots to score 28. Morton, who has been inefficient at times in his career, needed just 17 shots to score 30, and also had three assists to one for Gibbs.

"He's our leader," Monaghan said. "He's the best player in South Jersey, bar none."

This was the state-title game. That was Seton Hall, one of the state's top programs, with Gibbs, one of the state's top players.

Morton never blinked. He took the biggest shot in the biggest moment of the biggest game of his career.

He made it, too.

It turned the Hermits into state champions.

It also re-cast their mercurial leader's entire career.