WITH seconds ticking away at GMHBA Stadium on Saturday afternoon, and the scoreboard showing a slender Geelong lead, the Casey Demons were in need of a hero.

Enter, Mitch Gent.

As Harley Balic threw the ball onto his right boot and tumbled it toward the goal square, Gent drifted forward, leapt over Geelong’s Patrick Dowling and juggled the most significant mark of his young career.

With one-minute left in the contest, Gent went back, sucked in some deep breaths, and from 15 metres, fulfilled every kid’s dream of slotting the match winning goal.

“It was pretty exciting,” Gent told Melbourne Media.

“I took the mark then realised I had to kick the goal so there was a little bit of nerves, but I’m just lucky it went through.”

The 26-year-old is no stranger to the big moments, already achieving this feat for Bonbeach in 2018.

“I was actually lucky enough to do it earlier in the year in local footy,” Gent said.

“But just close games, they’re the ones you want to win, and to come down to [Geelong], it was unreal.”

Playing a pre-cursor to Geelong and Melbourne’s AFL clash, the crowd began to build as Casey’s match came to a close, and Gent was thrilled to stand up on the biggest stage of his career.

“It was an exciting part of the game,” he said.

“It was the curtain raiser so you know that the crowd is probably going to build towards the end of the game and it was a tight finish.

“So it was just a really good feeling and luckily enough I was the one to kick the winner.”

Gent was the final piece in Casey’s comeback puzzle on the weekend, but at half-time the Demons were staring down the barrel of defeat, trailing by 25 points.

“I think in the second quarter [the vibe] dropped a little bit, similar to last week against Footscray,” Gent said.

“But we reassessed at half-time, realised where we had to fix a few things up and to our credit we stared to play that way and slowly grind them out.

“Then that last quarter we pulled the trigger and got ourselves back into it and got lucky.”

Gent has had a mixed season so far, finding himself squeezed out of the Demons side on occasion, with a high AFL representation at Casey.

“I guess it’s been a frustrating year a little bit individually, going in and out (of the side), but I’ve kept doing the right things and it has paid off,” he said.

“Coming back into the side and experiencing this feeling – it’s great.”