He hit the impossible shot.

And with it, Tahoma High basketball star Christian Behrens helped the Bears keep their playoff hopes alive Tuesday night against Kent-Meridian.

With 2.9 seconds left in the second overtime, Behrens took the in-bounds pass with a pair of K-M defenders draped all over him and nailed an off-balance, fade-away 3-pointer from 23 feet out, lifting the Bears past the Royals 71-68 in a South Puget Sound League North Division game.

Behrens, who entered the night second in the North in scoring at 22 points per game, was swarmed by Tahoma fans and teammates after sinking the unlikely bucket.

“I knew I was getting it. I told my guard to just get me the ball,” Behrens said with a smile. “As soon as it left my hand (I knew it was going in).”

Behrens finished with a hard-fought, game-high 28 points.

“It’s something we run all the time,” said Tahoma coach Rob Morrow. “I hoped that we would have gotten the ball closer to the rim (on the in-bounds pass).

“Christian made a lot of plays down the stretch.”

Indeed he did. In fact, Behrens scored 15 of Tahoma’s 20 points in the two overtime periods.

With the win, Tahoma improved to 2-4 in league play, thus keeping the Bears’s playoff hopes very much alive.

It was a particularly tough loss for Kent-Meridian (1-5, 3-7), which was playing its first game since the death of teammate Dorian Tursic. Tursic, 18, died in a car accident early Sunday morning.

Before the game, there was a moment of silence in honor of Tursic, who had recently moved into the starting rotation. In addition, K-M players wore black armbands in their teammate’s memory while Tursic’s No. 22 jersey was draped over a fold out chair on the team’s bench throughout the game.

“He hit a fade away, four feet behind the 3-point line with two guys draped on him,” said K-M coach Brian Lockhart. “What do you do? I knew it was going in as soon as he released it. I mean … wow.”

Taylor Summerhays added 18 points for the Bears.