Down to the Last Play

♫ Shot in the net, it's not too late
Baby, this game's down to the last play ♫

"One minute left, and the scores are tied. Why does that always happen?"

— Frank Shackleford, Chilly Beach

Almost invariably, sports games in fiction are extremely close-scored, go down to the wire, and are decided by a crucial, unbelievable, Million to One Chance play at the last second. Usually, the game in which this occurs is the grand finale; the championship or playoff game pitting the ragtag underdogs against the seemingly unbeatable Opposing Sports Team.

• Every American football game ends with either a Hail Mary pass, or some bizarre, convoluted offensive play that the team thought of back in practice. Or, if the protagonist team is in the lead (which almost never happens because people like comeback stories), a goal-line stand. Plus, the score usually puts one team up by 4-6 points, so there's no way to hope for a last-second winning field goal (worth only three points). The likely reason for this is not because it isn't dramatic,^note any sports fan can tell you otherwise, but because it would put the game in the hands of the Kicker^note more precisely, the hands of the Long Snapper and Holder and the legs of the Kicker, who isn't usually the Protagonist.
• Every baseball game ends with either (a.) a dramatic walk-off home run, (b.) a clutch strikeout or incredible defensive play while the tying and/or winning runs are on base, or (c.) a super-close play at home plate. Full counts are terribly common. And the home team's always trailing in the bottom of the ninth.^note  Granted, if the home team is leading after the top of he ninth, the game ends right then and they win.
• Every ice hockey game ends with The Hero getting a breakaway and going one-on-one against the goalie—or, of course, a shootout, which is a set of forced one-player-versus-goalie sequences.
• Every basketball game ends with a desperate buzzer-beater (a shot released before the game timer ends but which doesn't go in the basket until after it ends; considered legal in basketball). Often from across the court.
  • Alternately, having to dunk on The Rival / the nastiest player from the other team.
• Every race ends with a (sometimes literal) photo finish.
• Every golf tournament comes down to making a long putt, or to getting out from a trap or some other nasty place.
• Every association football match ends with a spectacular last-minute goal, usually from a free kick. Or sometimes a last-minute penalty, or a penalty shootout.
• Every bowling game comes down to either rolling a strike or making an extremely tough split to pick up a spare.
• Every poker game comes down to a high-ranking hand being beaten by an even higher-ranking hand.
• Every boxing match ends with a knockout, usually after the scrappy underdog has taken a beating that would certainly put him behind on points, and been knocked to the mat the maximum number of times possible without losing by TKO.
• A sudden-death overtime, in which any play that results in a score is by definition the last play. This can actually be a two-fer, as there have been incidents where the underdog team has scored the tying point needed to take it to overtime in the last play as well.
• And so on. Whatever the case, slow motion during the last play is expected.

Of course, this is not to say that the hero team will necessarily be successful and win the game in this final play. It's become a trope itself to have the final shot miss, the closing field goal go wide right, or that last deep fly ball to die at the warning track in order to present a Downer Ending and teach An Aesop that you can't always win and it's okay to lose sometimes. Often such loss is non-standard. For an example, scoring your own goal or face planting right before the finish line. (And also note that it doesn't make the example an aversion or subversion of this trope— the game is still decided on the final play, even if not in the protagonists' favor.) In Real Life examples this is even more prominent; close games that come Down to the Last Play are often contested by two evenly-matched teams, both of which are deserving of the win, and thus there isn't a clear protagonist if one is not in either team's fanbase.

If the hero has gotten to the finale via help of a supernatural power or device, expect this power to be taken away. However, even without this power, the win is guaranteed.

The narrative reason this happens is because it's the most exciting way for a game to go (in theory). There are very few circumstances in which it is interesting to see a routine pop fly with a four run lead or a second string quarterback sit on the ball for three downs.

Often preceded by the Miracle Rally, and the one player who is involved in the dramatic final play is often the one underdog player who finally gets the chance to prove himself.

A Super-Trope to Who Needs Overtime?^note Although ironically, in real life, overtime itself can play out this way. Contrast with Curb-Stomp Battle.

See Just in Time for the non-sport variation of this trope. In politics, this trope is called Decided by One Vote. See also Underdogs Never Lose and Misfit Mobilization Moment. When a game itself is structured so that almost every match comes Down to the Last Play, the system enabling this is a Golden Snitch. Very distantly related to Critical Existence Failure, which is about video games where only the last hit point counts as far as staying alive or uninjured.

No Real Life Examples, Please! This situation is much rarer in reality than in fiction, but it does happen. However, the results of real sports events aren't part of a scripted narrative and aren't part of this trope.

As this is an Ending Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Chapter 58 of the Ah! My Goddess manga, Megumi's four-member softball club forms a team with Keiichi, Belldandy, Urd, Skuld, and Sora to play against N.I.T.'s baseball team, composed entirely of Jerkasses. During the bottom of the ninth, Megumi's team is ahead by one run when it looks like it's going to be a Downer Ending when the opposing team scores two runs in the ninth inning, but the first runner failed to actually touch home plate, meaning he's out, and Megumi's softball club wins by one run.
• Area no Kishi: Young football star Aizawa Suguru starts off the opening chapter by making what the announcers describe as a "magical pass" in the final moments of an international youth football game against Brazil. His teammates shot is easily blocked by the Brazilian goal-keeper, however since the deflected ball just so happens to land at Suguru's feet, he is able to make the last second shot that ends the game in a tie between Japan and the reigning champions.
• Happens repeatedly in the Battle Athletes TV Series.
• Played with in Dragon Ball. Goku's performance in the final round of each Budokai Tournament is always this case, except that it's his opponents who barely win. Goku wins only once in the final saga before Z.
• Parodied in Excel♡Saga with one of the sports show episodes. Excel's team loses by a ludicrously huge margin (several million runs) in the last inning. Apparently the Downer Ending version of this trope is popular in Japan.
• Eyeshield 21 does this a number of times, such as with Sena's first game against Koigahama and most of the Devil Bats' games during the Fall Tournament. It often doesn't end up so fine and dandy though.
• Every. Single. Lacrosse match in Futari wa Pretty Cure is won by Nagisa scoring at the last second. Every. One. This is not an exaggeration. And there are about 6-7 across two seasons. Originality is not the writers' friend when it comes to Lacrosse games, it seems.
• Future GPX Cyber Formula:
  • In EP 3, Hayato took third place at the qualifying round of the Fujioka Grand Prix by 0.002 seconds by a photo-finish line.
  • Episode 26 is even more blunt. His Super Asurada is having a problem, yet he beats Shinjyo out of determination in the last stretch in the English GP. In fact, Hayato is always seems to be this case up until SAGA Arc.
• In Girls und Panzer, both the practise match against St Gloriana's at the beginning of the series and the final match against Kuromorimine come down to a last shot between Team Anglerfish and the opponent's flag tank. It's a loss against St Gloriana: the low-velocity howitzer on the Panzer IV ausf D doesn't have the penetration needed to get through the Churchill's thick armor and they're taken out by a direct hit from its 75mm gun. They defeat Kuromorimine, however, when the Tiger only manages a grazing hit against Anglerfish's upgraded Panzer IV ausf H that deflects off the side of the turret and their improved 7.5cm KwK 40 cannon easily defeats the Tiger's rear armor.
  • In Der Film, the University team's commanders claim that the exhibition match between them and Oarai and their friends from the other schools will be an easy victory, but by the time of the final showdown, of the sixty machines that joined the match, only five remain. And in the end, only one is still standing: Maho's Tiger I.
• Downplayed in Hidamari Sketch. Arts A's victory in the medley brought them victory... over Arts B. School-wise, they're still second last.
• Imaizumin-chi wa Douyara Gal no Tamariba ni Natteru Rashii: ~DEEP~: Due to Yukina being out of practice and everyone else outside Reina not knowing how to play, the "Gals" first-years won against "Raio" third-years by a small margin.
• Inazuma Eleven plays this straight in most of the matches, except the second season/game, in which The Worf Effect takes places to show how badass the bad guys are when they debut.
• Kinnikuman wins so many matches in this fashion that he's been nicknamed the "Miraculous Comeback Fighter."
• Kuroko's Basketball does this a few times, most notably during the Winter Cup and the GoM's match with Jabberwock.
• In one episode of Lucky Star, there's a relay race in which Miyuki is the final leg runner for her team (it wouldn't do to have a main character somewhere in the middle), and the race is of course decided by a photo finish: her larger-than-average chest breaks the ribbon before the other runner crosses, granting her team the victory.
• Very common in Pokémon: The Series. Trainers can use anywhere from one to six Pokémon to battle each other, but matches will almost always end with a one-on-one fight. Adding a layer to that, many of those final one-on-one fights will end with both combatants being so exhausted that whoever can land the next successful attack will win. The last play of the last play. There do exist exceptions in the show, but those battles are often depicted to be completely one-sided that it's not even much of a fight to begin with.
• Used at least twice in The Prince of Tennis, with Ryoma having to play an extra match when one of the normal games is declared a draw or forfeited by both teams. In the Hyotei arc, he plays Hiyoshi after Kawamura and Kabaji have to draw since they're both too injured to continue and both teams. In the anime-only American arc, Sengoku and Bobby Marx pull something similar and Akaya Kirihara is hurt during his game with Kevin Smith, so it's up to Ryoma to finish the last one and his feud with Kevin.
• PuraOre! ~Pride of Orange~ starts with Yu scoring the World Cup of Hockey winner in the last second of regulation time, giving Team Japan the victory over Team Canada. It ends with Manaka poking in the final goal of the All-Japan Championship B ice hockey tournament in the last second of regulation time, giving the Dream Monkeys the victory over Snow White.
• Almost all the matches shown in the anime version of Ro-Kyu-Bu! comes down to this.
  • The Girls vs. Guys match was won by the girls through a game-winning shot from Maho via an unexpected assist from Tomoka.
  • Hinata made a game-winner against Class D.
  • The match against Suzuridani was supposed to be a come-from-behind victory for Keishin, if only Saki did not miss the game-winning shot.
  • In their rematch in the prefectural tournament, however, she made the game-tying shot to send it to overtime. Tomoka almost won it for Keishin this time, but only if she made the game-winning shot in time.
• In Silver Spoon, the Big Game that will decide whether the Yezo High baseball team goes on to the finals comes down to this. Bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, our heroes are ahead by one and pitching, and talented freshman Komaba is on the pitcher's mound versus the local champion's best batter. Heartbreakingly, the more experienced batter hits Komaba's pitch, winning the game for the champs.
• The Rugball arc of Space Adventure Cobra ends with Cobra at bat, down by three points with bases loaded and time running out. He strikes the "Homerun pose", pointing his bat over the lights and promising to knock the 5kg (~11lb) ball out of the park. He makes the shot, though he'd swapped the regulation ball with a hollow replica containing evidence the Galaxy Patrol had sent him to acquire. His contact retrieves it in the parking lot.
• Subverted in a wildly over-the-top fashion in Sonic X. The speed-obsessed character Sam Speed had demanded a rematch against the titular hedgehog, who had humiliated him at the start of the series. Sam has procured an experimental rocket-jet-car-thing from somewhere, and the race is on! It comes down to a photo finish... until playback reveals that Sonic had reached the finish line WELL ahead of his opponent, hopped over it so as not to break the tape, mugged for the camera briefly, then run back to resume the race for the 'photo finish'.
• This almost always happens in every duel in every Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise, with the opponents getting in the lead by having the more favorable card/field presence first and cornering the protagonist, setting things up for the latter to win at the last possible moment. Often results in accusations of Ass Pull on the part of the protagonist.

Fan Works

• The Bolt Chronicles: Happens in "The Baseball Game," thanks to the opposing team's Epic Fail. Mickey Cleary, the Edgartown Heath Hens' slugging designated hitter and the team's leader in home runs and runs batted in for the year, comes to the plate in the last of the ninth inning with two runners aboard and a chance to win the game and the Single-A World Series. He ends the game by hitting into a triple play to Bolt, who is playing second base despite lacking a glove and the ability to throw a baseball properly.
• The Moonstone Cup: In the Cup's finals, Amarok and Twilight end up collapsing at the same time, too battered and drained to continue fighting, but Twilight has just enough magic left to throw some dirt at Amarok's face, winning the match.
• Reality Is Fluid: Eleya is watching a springball^note a Bajoran sport best described as full-contact handball quarter-final match that goes down to the wire because the referee screwed up. It ends in a sudden-death tiebreaker, which her guy wins.

Film — Animated

• Subverted in Cars. The race at the start of the film results in a three-way tie. However, in the tiebreaker race, Lightning McQueen is well ahead of the competition as he approaches the finish line but stops short to go help the King after he crashes, forfeiting the win.
• Disney Studios adapted Casey at the Bat in 1946, as part of Make Mine Music, and did a sequel in 1954 ("Casey Bats Again") where he ends up having enough daughters to field a very good baseball team.
• In Monsters University, the Scare Games score is all tied up before the last duel between Mike and Johnny Worthington.
• In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Dunk for Future, it looks like Team Tiger is going to win at first, but then it's demanded that the clock be reset, as it wasn't stopped when someone made the shot. This gives Team Defenders only half a second to land another basket... and they manage to do it, giving them two extra points - just enough to avoid being a point lower than or tying with Team Tiger.

Film — Live-Action

• In Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, the backstory of Ray Finkle, the primary villain, involves the disastrous loss of that year's Super Bowl by one point due to Finkle missing the 26-yard field goal that would have won the game for the Miami Dolphins. Finkle lost his mind as a result and was committed to a mental hospital, and blames the whole thing on Dan Marino, who, according to Finkle, didn't hold the ball "laces out" like he was supposed to. His vendetta against Marino and the Dolphins would lead to the plot of the movie.
• In The Air Up There, the score for the basketball game is 45 to 46 until Saleh scores the winning shot seconds before time runs out.
• In Angels in the Outfield, Mel Clark has pitched an entire game, and his last batter is the other team's heavy hitter. With two outs, and a foul ball that was nearly a home run, it comes down to one last pitch. The batter hits a line drive up the middle, but Mel manages to make a diving catch for the final out, the win, and the pennant for the Angels. And he did it all with no angel help whatsoever.
• In Any Given Sunday, Quarterback Willie Beaman, wins the crucial playoff game by diving into the Endzone during the final play of the game.
• In Back to the Future Part II, this is how Old Biff proves to Past Biff that "Gray's Sports Almanac" will help him become rich by betting on the winner until the year 2000. Specifically, Old Biff tunes into the UCLA - Washington game, and bets UCLA will win. When the commentator states that its doubtful UCLA will win after trailing Washington 16-17 with less than a minute left on the clock, Past Biff tells his older self that he was wrong. Old Biff turns up the radio, and the commentator announces that UCLA made a last second field goal, winning the game 19-17. (This game with this score actually happened in Real Life, though the radio broadcast in the movie could not be authentic as the real field goal was made with 18 seconds to play.)
• The Bad News Bears was the first film to have the protagonist team NOT win.
• In The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training, the game comes down to the last runner trying to stretch a lucky hit and a fielding error into an inside-the-park home run. He slides into home plate just as the catcher tags him with the ball. It took a few suspenseful seconds for the home plate umpire to call it.
• The championship match at the climax of Bend It Like Beckham comes down to a 1-1 tie, broken by Jess's penalty kick with mere seconds left on the clock. And just to add even more drama, she had missed a goal in the same situation earlier in the film.
• Beautifully averted in Blood Of Heroes when the climactic three-period game is decided in the middle of the second inning.
• In Caddyshack, Danny's final putt decides both a substantial bet and his own prospects for the future. He technically comes just short, but then the groundkeeper starts the latest phase of his insane efforts to kill a gopher on the course - by setting off bombs in the gopher tunnels. The explosions shake the course sufficiently to make the ball start rolling again and land in the hole.
• Cool Runnings, based on the 1988 Jamaican bobsled team, uses the trope, though not in the way the viewer expects. The team has a chance for a medal, but crashes in their final run. The inspiration is there when they carry their bobsled across the finish line to finish the race.
• In Crackerjack, Stan wins the bowls tournament with the last bowl of the match. However, because he collapsed after bowling it and was unconscious before the bowl came to rest, Bernie Fowler has it declared invalid. The officials decide to allow the next bowler in sequence to make the shot, and that happens to be Jack, who decides to bowl his infamous 'flipper'...
• In Didier, the team needs one more point to win against the PSG. Of course, Didier marks. After turning back into a dog.
• In Escape from L.A., Cuervo Jones forces Snake Plissken to play a deadly game of solitaire basketball for the amusement of him and the crowd.
  Cuervo Jones: "Two hoops, full court, ten-second shot clock. Miss a shot, you get shot. Shot clock buzzer goes off before you shoot, you get shot. Two points for a basket, no three-point bullshit. All you gotta do is get ten points. That's it." *dramatic pause* "By the way, nobody's ever walked off that court alive. Nobody."
  • Snake does indeed win, by way of making a lay-up, a jump shot from free throw distance, a jump shot from three-point distance, a half-court shot, and a full-court shot. After a few seconds of stunned silence, Cuervo prepares to kill Snake anyway, but Snake is saved when an earthquake happens, giving him the opportunity to escape the caged basketball court, and then the stadium itself. For bonus points, Kurt Russell actually made all those shots (including the full-court shot) during filming, although the number of takes it required is unknown.
• The Fencer: In the finals of the fencing tournament, the score is tied, the Moscow team has priority (meaning they win if it's a tie), and the team's best fencer is injured. Little Marta is their last hope. She manages to score a touch with a second to spare, winning the whole tournament.
• Harold Lloyd silent film The Freshman features Harold picking up a loose football and running it all the way down the field for a game-winning touchdown as time expires.
• Friday Night Lights: The quarterback for the Permian Panthers, Mike Winchell, is stopped one yard short of the end zone, and the team loses. The ending sequence is played in slow motion with members of the Panthers having a Heroic BSoD, as they can't believe they just lost. It also subverts Underdogs Never Lose, since the team had to jump through several hoops just to make it to the title game.^note The real game on which the film's game was based also went down to the last play, but the real-life Mike Winchell threw an incompletion.
• Happy Gilmore, because of the play it as it lies rule, Happy is forced to putt for a victory with a collapsed TV Tower fallen on the green. Refusing to putt around it to take the tie and play for the tiebreaker, Happy instead plays it through the tower like it's a putt-putt course, and sinks the winning putt to win the Tournament, and more importantly, to beat Shooter McGavin and win his grandmother's house back.
• Happens in the opening game of High School Musical 3: Senior Year, where with 16 minutes to go the Wildcats are losing horribly, but with upbeat inspirational music in their ears manages to even the score, and manages to score a basket just as the clock ticks from 1 to 0.
• The movie Hoosiers is based off the real story of tiny Milan's victory over giant Muncie Central. The game was won by a shot at the last second.
• In the 2006 film Inspired by… Vince Papale, Invincible, the movie ends with the first home game of the Philadelphia Eagles — one which they win without going into overtime because Papale calls an audible and then forces a fumble on the resulting punt, which he picks up and runs in for a touchdown.
• A League of Their Own, where the comeback comes from the Opposing Sports Team, with Kit Keller getting the big hit and then plowing over her sister to score the winning run.
• Steve McQueen's Le Mans ends with the 24 hour race as a three car shootout on the last lap, and that is after the previous lead car retires on the penultimate lap. This was nearly Truth in Television though since the movie was made in 1970 and the 1969 race was a two car last lap shootout (see Real Life examples below).
• In the Remake of The Longest Yard, the Cons manage to score on a last second trick play after mounting a miracle comeback to put them one point behind the guards. They have the choice of either kicking the extra point to send the game into overtime, or to go for two and the win. They choose the latter, setting up another trick play that results in them scoring and winning the game.
• Major League movies:
  • In Major League, the final play in the Big Game comes with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, but is otherwise a unique twist. The beat-up, has-been catcher "calls his shot" to the bleachers in order to draw the infield out, and then bunts for a base hit, allowing the winning run to score from second. Also, if this play had failed, they would have gone to extra innings rather than losing, as the game was tied.
  • Major League 2, however, plays the trope traditionally. With his team clinging to a one-run lead, in a move that would be unheard of in real baseball, Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn intentionally walks the guy he's pitted against, which results in the bases being loaded, in order to set up a confrontation with Parkman, the opposing team's big power hitter and the movie's central antagonist. Vaughn, of course, strikes Parkman out and wins the game.^note This may be a nod to Satchel Paige, who was said to have done the same thing to get to Josh Gibson in Real Life.
  • Major League Back to the Minors ends on a home run by the big-hitting prospect, despite the fact that there were no outs in the game and it was an exhibition.
• The Mighty Ducks series of movies always ended in some dramatic fashion, though never in overtime. The first movie ended on a penalty shot, the second in shootouts; the third movie again used the trope by having a scoreless tie all the way to the last seconds of the third period, and the Ducks being content with a tie against the varsity team. Then, a brilliant defensive play allows the Ducks a goal-scoring opportunity—from Goldberg, who had been the goalie in the previous two movies and was still a mostly defensive player.
• Parodied in the obscure 1989 B-horror-movie/teen sex comedy Monster High 1989 (no relation to the toy line from The New '10s). Not only does the fate of the world come down to a basketball game, and not only does the outcome of that game come down to one final free-throw, but that free throw spends a ridiculous amount of time bouncing around before settling perfectly on the rim. The world is saved when one of the protagonists gets the bright idea to blow on it, tipping it into the basket and saving the world.
• Mr. 3000 and Mr. Baseball not only both have "Mr." in their title, but both also end on a game-winning run scored by a bunt. Both bunts also prevent the titular character from making it into the record books (it leaves Bernie Mac stranded on 2,999 hits in the former, and it breaks Tom Selleck's home-run streak in the latter).
• Mystery, Alaska; with seconds on the clock, the underdog hockey team facing off against the New York Rangers needs a single goal to tie and therefore take the match into overtime. In agonizing slow motion, their captain makes a buzzer-beating shot... that strikes off the goalpost, producing the loud, piercing clink that is one of most heartbreaking sounds in sport.
• The Natural with his team, the New York Knights, down one run, down to his last strike with two outs, and manager "Pops" Warner share of ownership in the team at stake, Roy Hobbs hits a pennant winning homerun in his last ever at bat.
• Necessary Roughness pulled the same thing in the Texas game, scoring with a gimmick play to get within one as time expires, then going for two with a fake kick, opting to go for broke.
• In North Dallas Forty, the professional (US) football team of the main characters was predicted to win their championship game and move on to the Super Bowl, but were down by a touchdown near the end of the game. They scored the touchdown, and only needed the extra point to tie and move into overtime. Unfortunately, they fumbled the snap and didn't make the extra point, and so lost the game to the underdog.
• In The Pink Panther Strikes Again, President Ford is watching his old college team play a game that has come to this when Dreyfus hijacks the airwaves and makes his demands. By the time broadcasting is restored, the game is over, and the President ignores the fact that a madman just blackmailed the world to demand that someone tell him who won the game.
• Downer Ending example: In the Pete Maravich biopic The Pistol, Maravich makes an apparent buzzer beating shot and starts celebrating... before realizing that the shot came a split second too late.
• In Remember the Titans, the Titans overcame a 7-3 deficit by using a trick play (ironic in that, before the season began, Coach Boon looked down his nose at trick plays, as it were) for a 75-yard touchdown run in the final seconds of the game to win the state championship. Averted by the real-life 1971 T.C. Williams Titans; in the championship game, the opposing team was not only shut out, but ended up with negative rushing yardage.
• The Rocky series often has the boxing matches go down to the final round — and possibly by decision. Averted in Rocky III, when the final fight ends in only three rounds.
• At the end of Rookie of the Year, Henry loses his pitching speed and has to strike out the last three batters of the Mets without it. He does so, getting revenge on their slugger Heddo for scoring a home run off him at the start of his career, allowing the Cubs to advance to the World Series.
• The Rotten Tomatoes Show lampshades this phenomenon in a song performed by Brett called Last Second Plays.
• Averted in Rudy. During the game between Notre Dame and Georgia Tech, Rudy gets to go in on the final play only because Notre Dame already has a 35-3 lead. Rudy records a sack on the Georgia Tech quarterback to end the game.
• In Rush, James Hunt needs to finish third or better in the last F1 race of the season to be world champion. He finishes third on the last lap of the race to beat Lauda by a single point and becomes world champion.
• In Saratoga, the climactic horse race, which will either leave bookmaker Duke Bradley penniless or allow him to retire from bookmaking to run a ranch, comes down to a photo finish that has to be reviewed via a film reel.
• In the made for TV movie Second String every playoff game the Buffalo Bills play comes down to the last play with just seconds on the clock.
• In the final moments of the last game of Shaolin Soccer, the score is tied at 0 - 0 (because the enemy team decided they would rather win by injuring enough players on the good team to force them to forfeit). Naturally, the Love Interest shows up when they reach the point where they are one player short, and she and the main character combine their Kung Fu to make the ultimate shot and win the game.
• In Space Jam, the Tune Squad is in a pinch — 10 seconds to go in the final quarter, down by two (meaning they would need to make a three-pointer to avoid tying) and they're a man down. Michael Jordan has just learned that, in Looney Tune Land, he can use the cartoony physics to his advantage, but without the extra man, they forfeit and Swackhammer gets him and the Tunes. Bill Murray (as in, the actor, not a character played by Murray; it's that kind of movie) arrives just in time and Jordan's able to pull off a half-court slam dunk to win the game.
• Teen Wolf: Scott (Michael J. Fox) starts using his newfound werewolf powers to win basketball games for his high school, at the expense of alienating his teammates who see him hogging the ball, and the glory, for himself. Eventually Scott decides to retire the wolf, right before the Big Game against the rival Dragons, and that game ends up coming down to Scott being fouled by the Jerk Jock just as time expires with the Beavers down by 1, and Scott has to make the free throws — something that wouldn't be a problem for him in his wolf form, but in human form he usually misses them by overthinking about them. This time around, he sinks them, securing the win for the Beavers.
• Thunderstruck has the final game for Brian's team feature the home team down two points, ten seconds left on the clock, and possession of the ball by the klutzy protagonist. He passes to a more competent player, who shoots a 3-pointer, but is blocked, leading to Brian making his only 3-pointer in the film other than when he had Durant's "talent".
• Played with in the Kevin Costner movie Tin Cup, where the has-been pro (played by Costner) makes an impressive comeback in the U.S. Open Golf Tournament. It's down to the final hole, and he needs a par to tie and a birdie to win. The hole was a par 5 with a green guarded in front by a lake and he would have to murder his 3 wood to get it onto the green. Any sane golfer would lay up, he doesn't. He hits it into the lake, refuses to drop near the green, hits from where he hit his second shot, going for it again, hits it into the lake again, rinse and repeat until he holes the shot with his last ball in the bag for a 12 (had he dunked that one, he would've been disqualified). More than a few critics found this broke their Willing Suspension of Disbelief, arguing such would never happen in a "real" golf tournament. Until it did, more or less, see the Real Life section below.
• In The Waterboy, the Bourbon Bowl's last play starts with the Mud Dogs losing 27-24. However, Bobby and the Mud Dogs execute a flea flicker play, with Bobby throwing the ball right before the clock hits 0:00. Guy catches Bobby's pass, and the Mud Dogs win, 30-27.
• When Saturday Comes in which Sean Bean plays a football player named Jimmy Muir. He spends all the movie trying to become a member of Sheffield United. Of course, his very first match with them ends with him shooting a penalty at the 89th minute.
• In Youngblood (1986), Dean beats the Thunder Bay Bombers with a penalty shot with only three seconds left.

Game Shows

• American Gladiators had a big one in the Season Three Finals. Mark Ortega and Joseph "Bam-Bam" Mauro were pretty neck and neck coming into the Eliminator, with Mark given a 4-second penalty for trailing Joseph by eight points. In the Eliminator, Mark caught up to Joseph as the latter failed to climb the first wall, then fell as he made it over. The two are dead even as they fight past the medicine balls and Mark makes a dive across the line as Joe tears through the ribbon, leading to a photo finish. After reviewing the video, they determined that Mark crossed the finish line first when he threw his arm out over the line with a time of 48.86 compared to Joseph's 48.88, meaning Mark beat Joseph by two hundredths of a second.
• This happens a lot on The Chase, usually with the Final Chase ending at a ridiculously low time or the main chase ending with a 'one question shootout' (aka one right answer and the contestant goes through, one wrong one and they get caught and lose everything). Indeed, some of the winning/losing times in the Final Chase are just insane, with players having won/lost games with anything from ten seconds remaining, to two seconds remaining... to even ZERO seconds remaining (as in, they get caught and lose or win right as the clock hits zero at the end).
• Family Feud has seen countless Fast Money rounds come down to the final question, with the score in the 180-199 range and the final answer being just enough to win the grand prize (200 is needed to win). Made even more dramatic if there is a string of zero- or low-scoring answers with the second player. Made heartbreaking if the final answer's score is zero or falls just short of the winning 200 score. In either case, the moment will be made more dramatic. In addition, the scoring is structured such that, most of the time, whoever wins the final round wins the game (the game is played to 300 points, and the final round usually nets upwards of 250). As it's rare for a team to get all the answers, the game often rides on whether the opposing team can steal those final-round points. Extra drama points if it's a family's fifth day, and they're playing for the car.
• The Hollywood Squares: A five-square win, only after each of the contestants have filled in four boxes (none of which leads to Tic-Tac-Toe).
• Jeopardy!: While there were numerous close games through the years, one of the best "down to the last play" games came in the midst of Ken Jennings' incredible 74-game run in 2004. The game where he became champion was decided on Final Jeopardy! (he had the lead and bet liberally). On his 49th day, he had a mere $5,000 ($19,700 to $14,800) lead over the second place contestant and had to have the right answer (his opponent was incorrect) to win, which he did. Another of his games saw one of his opponents wager everything on a Daily Double late in Double Jeopardy! and guess correctly, and that opponent briefly took the lead before Jennings reclaimed the lead just before the end of the round; with Jennings leading by less than $2,000, both he and his opponent engaged in a truly dramatic Final Jeopardy! ... with Jennings winning. Finally, Jennings last game saw him hold a slim lead over the woman that finally beat him (thanks to Jennings giving a wrong answer).
• Press Your Luck (and even its precursor, Second Chance and revival Whammy!) will often have its outcome determined based on a contestant's final spin.
• A few times, the Winner's Circle on Pyramid was cleared only at the last second.
• Tic-Tac-Dough: The use of the special "red" categories frequently led to a showdown for a box that could give either contestant the win upon a correct answer. (In other words, both contestants have two of their mark in a line, and the box both are going for could give either one a tic-tac-toe.)
• Wheel of Fortune: When a contestant solves the bonus round puzzle (or begins the correct answer) a split second before the buzzer. Sometimes, it's been so close that they've had to stop and check the tape, and not declare the contestant a winner until returning from commercial.

Literature

• In the second Apprentice Adept novel, Blue Adept, protagonist Stile is pitted against former Great Tournament champion Rifleman in a game of American Football. At the end of the game, Stile is down by only two points, but Rifleman was guarding against the surprise drop kicks Stile had been using to stay in contention^note Stile, only vaguely familiar with the sport, had loaded up on bruisers when assembling his team of androids, neglecting offensive skill players or a kicker, forcing him to take take both roles. Stile lacked the size to operate in short yardage situations and the skill to make kicks at long range, forcing to go for drop kicks as soon as he got in range. Stile was in the middle of a run when the game clock hit all zeros. Stile slowed to a dejected walk, thinking he had lost. Until he heard his robot companion Sheen yell "Run, you dummy" from the stands. He then remembered that the game didn't end until this final play ended. The play ended in a wild scramble down the field, ending in a fumble into the endzone and a dogpile on top of the ball, which one of Stile's players ended up with.
• The Boy in the Dress has the main protagonist Dennis reclaim a football game his school's team was losing after he was expelled by the headmaster Mr. Hawtrey for crossdressing, which was disastrous to his team since he was the star player, and now they're losing as 6-0. The whole team rebels after half time by all wearing dresses to prevent the headmaster from expelling all of them, with Dennis back on play. He manages to outright overturn the game and his team wins by 6-7.
• Older Than Radio: In the 1888 Ernest Thayer poem Casey at the Bat, the great Casey strikes out to end the game. However, it's also an instance of an Unbuilt Trope, because Casey deliberately let the first two balls go by as strikes so that he could hit the winning home run to look like an even bigger hero, and then blew it.
• In The Cricket Match by John Parker, the eponymous match comes down to the final over, with the last two batsmen in and needing six runs to win.
• Justified in the Harry Potter series: Quidditch matches end only when the Golden Snitch is caught; catching the Snitch is also worth 150 points, usually resulting in a win for the team whose Seeker catches it. Thus, most matches end with the Seekers in a mad race for the Snitch. However, large portion of matches still end up by a winning team winning by 10 points.
  • The number of Harry Potter parodies that have pointed out how senseless this rule is are too numerous to list. ("This game is very complicated, but none of the rules actually matter, because once you catch this little golden thing everything else becomes irrelevant and your team automatically wins.") Fans have pointed out that this may be because Hogwarts-level Quidditch isn't really very "good" Quidditch — the Quidditch World Cup scene shows scoring happening at a much faster rate, thus making the 150 points from the Snitch less impressive and increasing the probability that grabbing the Snitch too early might lose you the game (as was done deliberately in the Quidditch World Cup). Further, in the Hogwarts Quidditch tournaments, the exact score can matter for a team's placing, meaning even a team that would win when the Snitch is caught will wait if getting it too soon would win the game but lose the championship. (As happened with Gryffindor in Prisoner of Azkaban, Order of the Phoenix, and Half-Blood Prince.)
  • It also bears noting that J.K. Rowling's "Quidditch Through the Ages" book characterizes Quidditch's rules as primarily being a senseless, thrown-together mess of traditions kept for tradition's sake. (A lot like some real sports, come to think of it.) The Snitch itself only exists because of a riot that once broke up a Quidditch game when the players stopped playing to catch a bird intentionally released by the chief of the Wizard's Council so that the players would hunt the bird for his own amusement rather than play Quidditch for his own amusement. The 150 number is how many gold coins he offered as an incentive, and we're told that it would be worth quite a bit more today, so it's probably lucky that it's only 150.
  • The film version of The Philosopher's Stone emphasises this element of it further, although the likelihood is far more that this is a case of sloppy research than deliberately lampshading this trope - Wood explains to Harry, directly after explaining scoring rules with the Quaffles, that "you catch [the snitch], Potter, and we win."
• Jason from Hover Car Racer wins or loses several races by just a few centimeters.
• Love Over Gold features this trope during the final game at the Tokyo Olympics between the British and Dutch field hockey teams, which ends with the score at 2-2. During the ensuing penalty shoot-out, each side takes four shots without anyone scoring a goal. Then the British team scores a goal, meaning that if British goalie Diane can fend off one more shot from Dutch forward Katrien, the British will get the gold. Diane just barely deflects the ball before it goes into the goal. It hits one post, then bounces off the other, then goes in almost exactly as the buzzer sounds. The video referee concludes that the buzzer sounded just before the ball went in, making the British the winners.
• Deliberately invoked in Little Myth Marker, where Skeeve bets a huge fortune on a single hand - the opening hand of the game - of Dragon Poker, because he doesn't have a clue how to play and figures an (incorrectly assumed) 50% chance is better than any odds he could get if he tried.
  • Also played with - Skeeve's stated logic is this: He claims luck got him to the match. His opponent is highly skilled. In the long run his opponent's skill will defeat his luck. However all the skill in the world cannot affect the outcome of a single hand. His opponent publicly plays along because of the prestige of the biggest bet in the history of the game being made on the outcome of one hand, and actually because it gets him out of his version of the "retirement for a gunfighter" problem - so much of his life and reputation is tied up in never losing a Dragon Poker match that the chance to finally lose publicly in a way that preserves his reputation for posterity (since Skeeve's charisma has sold the audience on the idea of a minimum-time, zero-skill game) would be almost worth the fortune to him.
  • All of which is rendered moot since the dealer has been bribed by a third party to make sure Skeeve wins and is using a marked deck.
• Happens in a golf game in the McAuslan series, which hinges on the final hole, the final game of a five-game series, and the next-to-final desperate shot from the depths of a sand trap. This is, of course McAuslan's fault.
• Modern Villainess: It's Not Easy Building a Corporate Empire Before the Crash uses this as a metaphor for Runa's first financial coup. When she invests in Silicon Valley and in U.S. foreign exchange right before the dot-com boom and pulls her family's collapsing bank out of a hole, the business world refers to it as Far Eastern Bank's clutch home run; bottom of the ninth, two outs, two strikes.
• The John Grisham novel Playing For Pizza opens with the main character, a journeyman 3rd string quarterback for the Cleveland Browns, blowing a colossal lead in the AFC Championship Game and being knocked unconscious-costing his team a chance at the Super Bowl. He's so disgraced he has to play in Italy.

Live-Action TV

• Several individual legs of The Amazing Race have been decided by footrace, with the eliminated team in sight of the mat when the second-to-last team checks in. Season 7 had three legs decided this way. However, the only finale to be decided this way was in Season 2, with a footrace from the cabs to the Finish Line. Tara and Wil were in the lead when they jumped out of the cabs, but Tara was asthmatic and could not keep up, allowing more physically fit Chris and Alex to race past her and win the million dollars.
• The Dukes of Hazzard episode "The Boar's Nest Bears" had such a match with a young prodigy player that was kept out from part of the match by machinations from the Opposing Sports Team's sponsor.
• In the Enemy at the Door episode "War Game", the format for the chess championship final match is for two games (with players alternating colours), with provision for a third tie-breaking game if one is required. Naturally, it is.
• Family Matters:
  • "Making the Team," from the fall of 1991, sees the normally clumsy Urkel lead an amazing second-half comeback for his team. Down 20 points late in the third quarter, Urkel connects on a shot just before the buzzer for the go-ahead points and help the team win the game.
  • A couple of weeks later, in "A Pair of Ladies," Urkel gets revenge on Carl's big-talking, thinks-he's-macho, hustling superior officer Lt. Murtgauh in a poker game when the nerd one-ups Murtgauh's would-be-winning hand with "two pairs of tens".
• Father Brown: In "The Last Man", Kembleford is playing a vital cricket match for ownership of the local cricket ground. With three balls left and six runs needed to win, the opposing team engages in some Unnecessary Roughness to knock out Kembleford's star player with a cricket ball to the head. Kembleford already being a man down, Lady Felecia goes in as last man, and hits a six on the final ball.
• In one episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Will is shown to be a very good basketball player, making all sorts of trick shots throughout the game. With his team down at the end, however, he's about to take a shot... when his cousin Carlton, wanting some glory himself, starts grappling with him for the ball, takes it, shoots, and misses horribly.
• Full House did this thrice, with hockey in "Nice Guys Finish First", boxcar racing in "Michelle a la Cart," and with baseball and a twist in "Stephanie Plays the Field".
• Glee. In two separate games, at the start of the Superbowl Shuffle episode, they lose a game by making a moronic play call in a situation where all they need to do is have Finn just take a knee. Then at the end of the episode they win another game when the other team ignores the same basic game ending strategy and and do the exact same error as Finn did in the first. There is a lengthy analysis of this at the Glee JBM for season 2 page.
  • Though the first was the result of the center being a dick with an intentionally low snap and the second was the result of the opposing center being frightened by their zombie makeup and snapping it high.
• Happy Days: The 1977 episode "A Shot in the Dark," where Richie becomes a basketball hero for Jefferson High when his last-second shot wins a big sectional game. In the next round, he's fouled at the buzzer with Jefferson trailing by two points; he makes the first shot to pull Jefferson to within one, but on the shot that would send the game into overtime ... he deliberately misses.
• On Hell's Kitchen they usually have some kind of preliminary competition between the two teams. The winners are rewarded, the losers are punished. Many of these contests are extremely subjective and they usually go back and forth until they end with a one-point victory.
• In Malcolm in the Middle, Malcolm, Dewey and Reese are playing a basketball game with the foul-happy Hal, with the game tied, one move left and Hal on the offense. The boys realize they have no choice but to use "The Play". It does not go well for Hal.
• Midsomer Murders: In "Last Man Out", an undercover Jones wins the cricket match for his team by hitting a six off the last ball, despite having been knocked unconscious with a cricket bat earlier in the game.
• Murdoch Mysteries:
  • The police games in the episode "The Great Wall" is said to be a tie between Station 4 and Station 5 going into the final event (a tug-of-war between both teams). One of the men on the Station House 5 team loses his footing, giving Station House 4 a brief shot at winning, but Murdoch is distracted by seeing a clue that solves the murder case he's been investigating and Station House 5 wins the event.
  • The baseball game at the end of "Stroll on the Wild Side" is tied 8-8 when Murdoch comes to bat with Inspector Brackenreid on base. Despite the distracting presence of a member of the Black Hand, Murdoch hits the home run that brings both of them home to win the game.
  • The football (soccer) episode "Bend it Like Brackenreid" ends with the game going to penalties and John Brackenreid, previously established as unable to shoot straight, inventing the idea of a curving shot that goes round the opposition's wall.
  • The basketball episode, "It's a Wonderful Game", ends with Murdoch's son Harry, previously established as just generally bad at basketball and not even liking it much, being brought in as a sub and scoring the winning basket just before the buzzer. He says it was a fluke, but George, as coach, says that sometimes that's all you need.
• Arino the Retro Game Master often conquers games on his last few lives, when he's run out of time to play. They even named a song "Last Continue" because of this.
• Averted in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine baseball episode, "Take Me Out To The Holosuite". The main characters lose the game 10-1 (with their single run being scored on an accidental bunt).
• Two simultaneous examples in the season four premier of Stranger Things. Lucas' basketball final only has enough time for one more play before the clock runs out, and Lucas is brought in from the bench for the first time in the season. Meanwhile, the D&D Club is down to only two surviving players in their battle against Vecna - Dustin and Erica, who can kill him if they manage to hit before his turn but will certainly die if he gets his own attack off. Both events are cut together with equal weight, both of them ending on a final throw. Lucas gets his shot in to just beat the other team, and Erica rolls a natural 20 to obliterate Vecna.
• In Ted Lasso:
  • The first season ends with a stoppage-time trick play that scores the tying goal that will save AFC Richmond from relegation. And then Man City rallies in the dying seconds to score another goal to relegate them.
  • The second season ends with a stoppage-time penalty that gives Richmond the tying goal to win promotion back to the Premier League.
• Challenges on Top Gear. The presenters sometimes lampshade the ridiculousness of this, and sometimes insist it really was that close. Inverted in the race across London. Richard takes the lead instantly at the start and never relinquishes it.
• Many of the challenges on Top Shot ended this way, with sometimes as little as a few hundredths of a second separating who stayed from who went home.
  
  The show also subverts this as often as not, with one particular contestant dominating a given challenge. Kelly's first elimination challenge and J.J.'s performance shooting steel in the finale are standout examples of almost comically one-sided matches.
• The West Wing: The Vinick-Santos election during the final season ends this way. Santos has 267 electoral votes to Vinick's 266 putting both parties short of the 270 votes required to win. The only state left to call their results is Nevada which has 5 votes, meaning whoever wins that state wins the Presidency. Nevada votes for Santos, and Vinick opts to be a Graceful Loser and doesn't contest the result.

Manhwa

• This happens in the first and only school championship water polo match in My Heart Is Beating. The team does score and win, but they're disqualified for other reasons.

Music

• The video for the Richard Marx song "Take This Heart" puts him in the situation of pinch-hitting for the Chicago Cubs during the seventh game of the World Series. In the bottom of the ninth, with two out and two strikes, he hits a home run to win the game and the Series — and then the whole thing turns out to be All Just a Dream.
• In ''Warren Zevon's "Hit Somebody (The Hockey Song)", there's thirty seconds left in the game when the main character, Buddy, gets the puck and successfully shoots a goal. There's no indication given that it was game winning, but it's still important because it's Buddy's final game before retirement and he's dreamed of shooting a goal his entire career.

Newspaper Comics

• Averted most of the time in Peanuts, where Charlie Brown's team losing a baseball game 216–0 is a regular occurrence. One 1959 episode had his team losing 600–0! Another series had him substituting for Peppermint Patty; her team was winning 50–0, but then when Chuck pitched, she got knocked out and later learned (while in bed receiving therapy from Marcie) that the opponents made a 51-run comeback.^note Patty, understandably, went completely batshit. In fact, probably the only time that Charlie Brown's team actually wins a game^note Apart from an incident where every team in the league other than Charlie Brown's was hit with a bug, resulting in them winning several games in a row by forfeit due to player illness is when Charlie is not playing.
  The specials did play the trope straight once, albeit in Football, not Baseball: In the game played during "It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown", Charlie Brown is not the quarterback, but rather the kicker, thereby allowing his team to be down 21-20 on the last play. (The reason for the 1-point difference is that Lucy, as holder, pulled the ball away on the first extra point.^note [Somehow, though, they made both of the next two.) Guess who gets called in on said last play?

Pinball

• At the end of a game in Stern's Iron Maiden, the player is given one last chance to play until the Bonus Time he accumulated earlier runs out.
• Many of the games from Italian pinball maker Zaccaria have a feature called "Game Time Bonus." During the player's last ball, a timer is incremented as the player keeps playing. After the ball drains, the player can keep playing until the time counts down to zero.

Professional Wrestling

• It's extremely rare for a 2-out-of-3 falls match to end at 2 falls. Similarly, an Iron Man match is usually tied, or the score is one fall apart, up until the closing moments. When it does end with only two falls, it is usually the heel in the match, and walk out of the match after losing one of the falls.
• In Ring of Honor, the Briscoes developed a reputation for winning such matches in two straight falls.

Tabletop Games

• Blood Bowl, the American Football meets Warhammer miniatures game, tends to have this when a fast team like Wood Elves plays against a tough one like Dwarves, with the fast team often scoring a few goals while the tough one is busy whittling them down (and "whittling them down" here means "curbstomp them until they leave the field on a stretcher"). Many games thus end with the tough team frantically trying to get the goals they previously lacked while the fast ones mount a Last Stand with the few remaining players not in the K.O. or Injured & Dead box.
• The Board Game Ricochet Robots has a rule designed to cause this. The game consists of a series of randomly generated puzzles, with the goal being to come up with the shortest solutions. If two players get the same answer within one minute of each other, it's counted as a tie and goes to whoever was currently losing, rubber band style. This, and the fact that there are 17 rounds, means that even with mismatched players, games generally come down to an all-way tie decided by the last point.
  • Then again, since the puzzles are generated randomly, there's no guarantee that "last point" can't be solved in two moves.

Theatre

• In That Championship Season, the 1952 Pennsylvania State High School Basketball Championship game was decided in the final seven seconds when Fillmore High scored a basket just before the buzzer to go from being one point behind to one point ahead. Four of the five players in the game and their coach have been re-living those seven seconds almost constantly ever since.

Video Games

• In F-Zero GX's second story map (a 1-on-1 against Samurai Goroh) your opponent has infinite boost, so if you try to boost past them they quickly retake the lead. But if you zoom past him at the last moment you win before they can catch up, and it's certainly easier than trying to knock him off-course.
• Mario Superstar Baseball's intro movie shows a game between Mario and Wario which ends in a walk-off home run by Mario. Downplayed in that the game was already tied, and the home run causes them to win by 2 runs, but a walk-off is a walk-off.
• Quake III: Arena: The capture limit for the One Flag CTF challenge "One Cap to Win" in Arena Arcade is 1.
• In some versions of Madden NFL, if your team is lining up for a game winning field goal with a few seconds left on the clock. The camera has a more dramatic angle, the sound will quiet down except for an audible heart beat (complete with a slight rumble in your controller with each beat), and time slows down as the ball sails towards the uprights.
• One stage of Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose! is the last few minutes of a football game, in which the player must score a touchdown to win.
• In Yakuza 5, Shinada's first, and last, home run as a pro was in the bottom of the ninth of a 0-0 tie game.

Visual Novels

• CLANNAD: The basketball match of episode 16 of season 1. Your average stuff of winning by one point included.
• At the end of Double Homework (at least before the epilogues), the protagonist loses the Olympic qualifier to Rachel by a split second.
• This happens with just about every competition in Majikoi! Love Me Seriously!. The Kawakami Ball game, Yamato's duel with Chris, Yamato's mahjong match with Fushikawa, the two-girl relay sprint, and more.
• The Fussball match between the protagonist and title character of Melody comes down to the final point. If the protagonist wins, he gets a special, sexy surprise from Melody. If he loses, he has to prank-call Steve.

Web Animation

• Many of Level UP's maze levels and other challenge videos usually have Mario win on his very last life.
• Sonic for Hire: In Season 3, Sonic and the crew participate in a Tecmo Bowl game they rigged so they could get loads of money for losing. However, Sonic gets carried away with a winning streak, so Tails tries to get everyone riled up with a Rousing Speech to get them quickly lose the game... until Earthworm Jim points out they only have two seconds before the game is over, leaving Tails to enact Plan B, by having a tank plowed onto the field for instant disqualification.

Webcomics

• In PHD, it's a college staff game so it's nerds v. nerds. The game can be won on the final swing because no one else has scored once in the entire game.

Web Original

• In the brewstew episode "Little League", the narrator's team is down 2 runs on two outs, and Josh is up at bat. He hits the ball fall enough to score a Triple. Instead of staying at third as everyone the team told him, Josh tries to convert it into an Inside-the-Park Home Run. Unfortunately, his team loses, causing everyone to hate him for the rest of his life. The End.
• In Critical Role: Campaign One, the pit brawl between Grog and Kern the Hammer in Episode 16 goes down to the last hit point. Kern wins, largely because Travis Forgot About His Powers and Matt didn't.
• In the Game Grumps: Steam Train playthrough of Mario Party 4, Ross and Barry end up with a perfect tie at the end of the game, triggering the rare minigame where they simply roll dice to determine who wins.
• Many of Rooster Teeth's "Achievement Hunter" videos, especially "Let's Play Minecraft" and "Vs." will easily come down to this, especially if it's a game where two players are incredibly close.
• Parodied in the official Roy Of The Rovers Twitter, when Roy comments on the 2015 UK General Election:
  @OfficialRoyRace: Melchester often confounds the pollsters, though. Result here frequently seems decided, only for there to be a huge last-minute turn-around.
• Related to the Pokémon example above, users of Smogon typically write "war stories" which are glorified logs of their battles. The logs are often extremely close matches where both fighters get down to their last Pokémon. You can find the best ones in a "Warstory Archive" here.
• In a Survival of the Fittest flashback scene, David Jackson (a baseballer, the pitcher for Barry Coleson's team) remembers a triple play the team made at the eleventh hour to seal the championship - perfectly exhibiting this trope, though whether David got lucky with the first part of the play and rolled from there or he was just that good is left ambiguous.

Western Animation

• Amphibia: In "The Big Bugball Game", the match is tied at 9 to 9 with Sprig scoring the winning goal.
• The Beatles enter a donkey in a Madrid horse race as it runs very fast in panic when it hears loud music (episode "Tell Me Why"). It comes down to a photo finish between the donkey and another horse. The donkey appears to have won by a nose, but he didn't...he won by the jockey's (Ringo) nose.
• The Beetlejuice episode "The Unnatural" has B.J.'s New Yuck Prankees in a grudge baseball game against Scuzzo the Clown's Jokeland Laugh-letics, with the losing team relegated to a hell hole called "The Loser's Circle." With the score tied, the final inning comes down to a play at the plate with B.J. waiting to tag out Scuzzo, obscured by a cloud of dust. When the dust clears, the two opponents are demanding the umpire call it, but Lydia interrupts and brings everyone to tears with an impassioned treatise on sportsmanship and the simple joys of baseball. The crowd watching the game cries so hard, in fact, that the game is called off on account of rain.
• Classic Disney Shorts:
  • Casey Bats Again: Bottom of the ninth, the Caseyettes are one point behind and all hopes are on mighty Patsy to win the game. Suddenly, a desperate Casey drags her off and takes her place in disguise. He gets two strikes, and just like his last game, it's up to him to hit a homerun. He strikes out, just like before; fortunately, Patsy is just behind him and hits the ball, leaving Casey to believe he won the game.
• Dinosaur Train: In the Classic in the Jurassic games, the three teams are almost tied, but the turtle race isn't over yet. Paulie Proganocheyls (a turtle who can't retract her neck) takes home the win for Team Triassic by accident when the other two turtles retract their necks just as they all cross the finish line.
• In Dragons: Riders of Berk special "Dawn of the Dragon Races", there are three races in which the dragonriders compete to catch the most sheep. Every race has them get the same number of sheep and all go after the black sheep as a tiebreaker. (Although, since the black sheep is worth 25 points once the rules get formalised, it's a Golden Snitch anyway.)
• In an episode of The Fairly OddParents!, Timmy wishes to be the best basketball player ever in order to help a basketball team. He does great until the last play, in which Wanda explains that "Everybody knows that the last two minutes are the real competitive part of any professional basketball game!" and they can't help Timmy win a competition.
• A horse race in Futurama takes the photo finish concept one step further and ends with a quantum finish. "No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!"
• King of the Hill:
  • The show originally subverted this with Hank Hill's team getting blown out in the state championship. However, this was later retconned to have been a close game that Hank lost for his team.
  • They played it straight when Hank and Bobby entered a father and son target shooting competition. It all came down to Hank's last shot, where he needed a bullseye to win— and he missed the whole target. This didn't lead to the expected Downer Ending, though, because Bobby was more than happy with second place.
• Looney Tunes: Bugs Bunny takes on the Gas House Gorillas in "Baseball Bugs". With the score 96-95 in Bugs' favor and two out in the bottom of the ninth, the Gorillas have a runner on base and the batter uses a freshly chopped-down tree as a bat. He wallops Bugs' pitch so far that Bugs has to traverse the top of the Umpire State Building to catch it. The Gorillas batter is called out by the umpire and the Statue of Liberty.
  • Earlier and similarly, "Boulevardier From The Bronx" had the Giants leading 3-0 in the bottom of the ninth. With two out, Giants pitcher Dizzy Dan deliberately loads the bases via walks so he could get to the other team's hick Claude and strike him out. On an 0-2 pitch, Claude hits a grand slam, winning the game for his team and getting the last laugh on Dizzy Dan.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In the episode "Slice of Life", the Doctor gets roped into a bowling game. Distracted by Derpy, he fumbles a game-deciding throw against a 7-10 split in the final frame. Nevertheless, the slowly-moving ball nudges one of the pins, causing it to dramatically wobble toward the other. After a few tense moments, it simply falls over, leaving a lone pin standing, much to his team's frustration.
• The Owl House: In "Wing It Like Witches", the outcome of both Grudgby games is open with equal scores until the very last moment.
• In The Real Ghostbusters episode "Night Game," Winston hits the winning home run in a baseball game between teams of good and evil ghosts. This trope is justified because there was a Secret Test of Character to see if the Ghostbusters would cheat, and, presumably, the temptation was greatest with this situation. Also, the teams were so evenly matched that they were still tied zero-to-zero for the first eight innings.
• In Regular Show episode "Skips Strikes", Skips just needs to get a bowling strike to win while the other team gets ready to sabotage him. Despite their efforts to stop the ball, the Magical Elements lose and the Park Strikers wins.
• Parodied in The Simpsons episode "Homer at the Bat". In the final inning of the softball game, Homer comes up to the plate with the bases loaded, and is hit by the pitch while he's distracted by Mr. Burns's needlessly complicated Hand Signals, forcing in the winning run.
• Lampshaded so much in the South Park episode "Stanleys Cup"; the subversion at the end could be seen a mile away.
  • This was actually inverted in "The Losing Edge", when the team was this close to winning the state championships, which they did not want, since they only played Little League because their parents wanted them to. They got out of it instead by getting Stan's dad to continue a fight against another parent and get them disqualified.
  • Played Straight and subverted in "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride." Stan, elementary star quarterback (for an episode) shows up just in time to make a last second touchdown... and lose the game. Played straight again in that the score came out slightly less than the expected point spread, so the townsfolk's bets with the bookie paid off.
• Steven Universe: In the Baseball Episode, "Hit The Diamond", the game comes down to "Humans" down by one with Sapphire at bat and one runner on base.
• Tiny Toon Adventures:
  • Averted in the short, "Bleacher Bummer" from the episode, "The Wacko World of Sports". Said short had a baseball game that didn't come down to the final play... but only because there was no climactic final play to speak of, as the other team, Perfecto Prep, was forced to forfeit (with a big lead) over illegal equipment.
  • In the episode, "The Acme Bowl", the show did do a football game which does come down to the final play. Again, Acme Looniversity faced off against Perfecto Prep.
  • The short, "Buster at the Bat" from the episode, "Son of the Wacko World of Sports" was a direct parody of "Casey at the Bat". Buster, however, hits a home run, to the surprise of the narrator.
• In We Bare Bears episode "Ranger Games", the kickball game comes down to Grizzly having to score a home run in the bottom of the ninth with two outs.
• X-Men: Evolution: Season 2's first episode opens with this trope, as the only goal we're shown in the soccer match is the winning one, scored by Jean, of course.

---