With five minutes to go at the Australian Indoor Hockey Championships in Brisbane, New South Wales and Victoria were locked at 4-all with an under-15 boys bronze medal on the line.
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Port Macquarie goalkeeper Jamie Ferguson was sitting on the sideline taking in the action before his manager tapped him on the shoulder.
"If this goes to a shootout, you're going in," Ferguson recalled the message that was delivered.
A "terrified" teenager then put his gear on and then became the hero in goals as his state took out a much-deserved bronze medal.
Ferguson stuck out a left paw to deny Victoria's first penalty attempt before his pressure forced them to miss their next one as the shot flew wide.
As it turned out, the hours of penalty stroke practice he had undergone over the last two years proved pivotal.
He admitted he had "probably done thousands" of practices.
"Doing it at every training session for the last two years helped a lot and I've had some one-on-one training with an ex-Olympic goalkeeper in Toni Cronk," he said.
"She helped me with some one-on-ones a lot with my positioning and was a big help."
While Ferguson was understandably nervous, he shouldn't have been after his first-half effort only saw one goal go in the back of the net.
And even that was unlucky.
"I was sticking my stick out and copped an inside edge right into the goal so I was pretty bummed out about that," he said.
"[Before the shootout] all sorts [of thoughts] went through my head. You think about the worst, you think about the best... but fortunately we walked away with a bronze medal."
And while the MacKillop College student was the player that stood between New South Wales and taking something back across the border, he didn't see himself as a hero.
"I try to stay as humble as I can because it was just one thing," he said.
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