Forces old and new collided Friday night on the basketball court, producing an instant classic between Jamesville-DeWitt and Bishop Ludden that was in doubt until the final possession. But with one clutch free throw from Dom DeRegis, plus one big stop before the horn sounded, the Red Rams gained a 63-62 victory over the Gaelic Knights, despite trailing for most of the contest. At one point in the fourth quarter, J-D trailed 60-54, but rallied to tie it with six straight points. After Jack Rauch’s runner put Ludden back in front, Evan Dourdas answered with 1:02 to play, and it was 62-62. Now the Rams’ defense, who had managed to negate the Gaelic Knights’ size advantage and keep Ludden’s other star forward, Zach Walser, off the board after scoring 22 points in the first three periods, came up big, first with a turnover with 40.4 seconds left. Then, on a drive to the basket, DeRegis was fouled with 25.9 seconds to play. Given a one-and-one free-throw opportunity, DeRegis, after Ludden called time-out to try to ice him, rattled in the first shot before missing the second. With a chance to win, Ludden had the ball and it was in the hands of a familiar face to J-D, even as he now donned Gaelic Knights green. Mika Adams-Woods played junior varsity for the Rams last year, only to transfer to Ludden for this, his freshman year. Now the starting point guard for the Gaelic Knights, Adams-Woods had mostly stayed quiet during this tense evening, but at the end, he became a central figure. With eight seconds left, just as Adams-Woods appeared to have a clear lane to the basket, Ludden head coach Pat Donnelly called a time-out to set up a final play, even as the one in front of him was unfolding. Starting over from the left side, Adams-Woods again would get the shot, but it rattled off the rim. Rauch grabbed the rebound and had two rebound chances to win it, but they clanged off the rim, too, and the clock ran out. So ended a contest that produced intensity from the opening trip, with an exchange of 3-pointers that showed J-D was not about to let the taller, stronger Ludden squad get away from them. Walser tried, though, netting 15 first-half points as the Gaelic Knights led by as many as eight in the second quarter. But sparked by nine points from Isaiah Johnson in that period, the Rams closed the gap to 35-32 by halftime. They went back and forth in the third quarter, too, J-D taking the lead three times, only to have Ludden snatch it back each time and, again, gain an eight-point edge, 53-45, late in the period. Once more, the Rams rallied, using a 9-1 push to tie it, 54-54, with less than six minutes to play before baskets by Adams-Woods, Cameron Beauford and Shi’kem Lee created the six-point deficit J-D would climb out of at the end. Williams and DeRegis each finished with 18 points. Jacob Eich had nine points, with Adrian Autry contributing eight points, mostly from a pair of 3-pointers. J-D’s interior defense did an effective job on Rauch, holding him to nine points, the same total as Lee. J-D visits Oswego Tuesday and is back home next Friday to face Mexico before appearing in the Dec. 29-30 Bottar-Leone Holiday Classic at Christian Brothers Academy.