Step aside, Ray Rice. New Rochelle has a new hero.
His name is Khalil Edney, a 6-foot-2 senior guard who sent ninth-seeded New Rochelle High to the Section 1 Class AA basketball championship with a hard-to-believe, 55-foot buzzer-beater at the Westchester County Center yesterday afternoon in a dramatic, 61-60 win over rival Mount Vernon, the area’s perennial powerhouse.
“I’m still shocked that I made it,” Edney, also a star quarterback who led New Rochelle’s football team to a state championship, told The Post in a phone interview.
New Rochelle (13-9) will face Section 4 champion Binghamton in the New York State regional semifinals tomorrow at SUNY Purchase at 4 p.m.
The two-handed heave, which instantly became a YouTube favorite and led ESPN’s “SportsCenter” last night, came at the tail end of the wild play. Edney inbounded the ball from behind the Mount Vernon basket with 2.9 seconds left and New Rochelle down two, but the ball was stolen by Mount Vernon’s Devante Banner near mid-court.
Banner tossed the ball aimlessly downcourt to run out the clock. Edney, however, never gave up on the play. He picked off the pass and released the desperation shot with 0.1 seconds remaining.
“Most high school kids, when they win a big game like that, they throw the ball in the air,” said Edney, who finished with seven points and nine rebounds and plans to play quarterback in junior college this fall. “He didn’t throw the ball high enough. I grabbed the ball and I threw it.”
The shot swished the nets, setting off a chaotic postgame scene in which both teams were celebrating. The officials initially waved off the shot before conferring and ruling it good.
“That was the greatest feeling in the world when they said it counted,” Edney said. “Just because it was against Mount Vernon. They’ve been winning section titles for the past seven years. To beat them, that was everything.”
It was a joyous moment for Edney, who battled personal heartbreak when he was younger, losing his mother, Akilah Keisha Taylor, to cancer six years ago when he was 11.
“I have ‘momma’s boy’ tattooed on the inside of my arm. She meant everything to me,” he said. “When I got up [after making the shot] and everything calmed down, I met up with my dad [Louis Edney Sr.]. He said to me, ‘Your prayers were answered.’ ”
The shot capped a furious comeback for the improbable Section I champion Huguenots, who finished the game on a 12-1 run and won their first Section 1 crown since 2005 — when Rice, the Ravens’ Super Bowl-winning running back was in their backcourt — and also ended Mount Vernon’s run of seven straight crowns.