Cary boys’ basketball coach Allan Gustafson calls the final few minutes of tight games “Hero Time” — an opportunity for someone to seize the moment and win the game.

Unfortunately for Gustafson and his Imps, the hero was playing for Apex on Friday night.

Sophomore guard Connor Belicic hit a 3-pointer with 27 seconds left and then converted two free throws with four seconds to play to ice the Cougars’ thrilling 66-63 win over the Imps.

“I’m just proud of our guys down the stretch [and] how we kept our composure and pulled out a win,” said Belicic, who scored all eight of his points during the game’s final five minutes.

The win clinched a playoff spot for Apex, which enters the final week of the regular season winners of four in a row and eight of their last nine games. This after the team started 0-4 start in the Tri-Eight.

“I’m really proud of what we’ve accomplished,” said Apex coach David Neal. “They could’ve thrown in the towel a long time ago, but they hung in there.”

Cary’s season, on the other hand, took a colossal hit. The Imps needed to win their final three games in order to secure a playoff bid. With Friday’s loss, their last chance for postseason play is to win next week’s Tri-Eight tournament.

As is typically the case in an Apex-Cary donnybrook, there’s more at stake than bragging rights. It’s usually a tight game, and something out of the ordinary is bound to happen.

Friday’s get together featured two technical fouls and eight subsequent free throws in an eight-second stretch of the fourth-quarter and two lead changes in the final two minutes after having none during the course of the first 30. Apex played the final three-plus minutes with the game’s leading scorer on the bench with five fouls, and Cary somehow kept it close despite shooting 35 percent from the field and 54 percent at the free-throw line.

In other words, a “typical Cary-Apex rivalry game,” Neal said. “It went down to the wire and all sorts of crazy stuff happened the last four, five minutes.”

Apex controlled the first three and a half quarters and led by as many as 12 points in the third quarter. The Cougars shot respectably from the floor (45 percent), and they knocked down nine 3-pointers over the course of the game. Junior guard Adam Perry (14 points) accounted for four of them.

Tim Plummer was also sensational for Apex, scoring in transition, on drives to the basket and from outside on his way to a game-high 24 points, 12 of which he scored in the third quarter.

But Apex’s control of the contest wasn’t as secure as it seemed.

Kevin Windley’s back-to-back buckets to start the fourth quarter cut Apex’s lead to 52-49 and finished off an 11-4 Cary run.

Belicic and Plummer countered with a pair of 3-pointers to push the Cougars’ lead to 58-51 with 4:30 to play, and then chaos ensued.

Plummer was called for a foul while jostling for a loose ball with Cary’s Taylor Payne (21 points) a few seconds after knocking down his 3-pointer. Apex objected too passionately and was hit with a technical foul. Payne shot two free throws for the personal foul and two more for the technical and made 3-of-4.

On Cary’s ensuing possession, Payne was fouled again, leading to another Apex objection and a second technical.

Payne went to the line again, this time making 2-of-4 tries and getting Cary to within two, 58-56. On Cary’s ensuing possession, Derric Braziel (12 points) scored inside to tie the game at 58-58, the first time the score was tied since it was 14-14 in the first quarter.

Windley (16 points) scored on a layup a minute and a half later that gave the Imps their first lead, 60-58, of the game.

The teams traded the lead twice in the next 45 seconds, but Belicic gave Apex the lead for good with his 3-pointer with 27 seconds left.

Cary cut it to one, 64-63, but Belicic then made the two free throws with four seconds left to put the Cougars up 66-63.

“No pressure. I knew I was going to knock them down,” he said.

Payne got a decent look at the basket, but his last-second, potentially season-saving heave bounced off the back iron.

“I felt like they made the plays down the stretch, and we didn’t,” Gustafson said. “All you do in that situation is shake their hands and congratulate them for making the plays to win the game.”