GIRARD — It took a little less than two hours to play.

Between both teams, there were 58 fouls with 85 free throws attempted.

Four players fouled out.

Sometimes, it isn’t easy and just a little bit of luck is necessary.

That was the modus operandi for the Girard Indians as they outlasted the Ursuline Fighting Irish 62-57 in overtime Saturday afternoon.

“A win’s a win,” Girard coach Andrew Saxon said. “Doesn’t matter how you win. I thought it was a good game. Both teams played hard. I thought we played with a lot of intensity today.

“I’ve been trying to instill that in them. We got to play with intensity. In the games we didn’t, we suffered. In the games we did, we did well. The key was, we were up and down the floor playing hard. I’m pretty proud of our effort.”

Mia Malito led the Indians (8-6) with 19 points. Sieasia Triplett finished with a 14 point, 13 rebound double-double.

“It was a good game, though very disappointing,” Ursuline coach Bernard Scott said. “I felt like we gave the game away. We had opportunities to ice the game at the free throw line. We didn’t do that. We had some bad basketball IQ plays that cost us. Down the stretch, we just made a lot of plays to contribute to the loss. It was disappointing.”

Ursuline (5-9) was led by Alayna Smith’s 23 points with Meredith Gray adding 10.

After a 9-9 first quarter, the Indians opened up a 23-13 lead with 3:12 left in the first half.

The Irish responded with eight straight points to make it 23-21 at the 1:42 mark.

“We made some adjustments and they made a couple adjustments,” Saxon said. “They put some pressure on us. We turned the ball over a few times and they got back in the game. We weathered the storm and came back.”

It would be a 26-22 Girard lead at the half.

The third quarter featured two ties and three lead changes as the fouls started to accumulate on both sides with the Indians clinging to a 37-34 lead heading into the fourth quarter.

In the fourth quarter, neither team was able to ice the game from the charity stripe with the Indians shooting 6-of-15 and the Irish going 9-of-22.

It was back-and-forth in the final eight minutes of regulation with eight more ties and four lead changes.

Ursuline opened up their biggest lead of the game, 52-48, after Lily Scott split her free throws with 2:21 left

Girard tied it back up at 52 all after Triplett made 1-of-2 at the line with 1:42 left to play.

The biggest moment of the game happened with eight seconds left, the Irish up 53-52 and Scott back at the line.

Scott took his players off the free throw line so they wouldn’t foul.

“I knew that was a possibility,” he said.

Scott missed both, went for the rebound fouling Malito, and sending her to the line.

“I thought that we would at least split the free throws,” Scott said. “I definitely didn’t think we would go and try to foul them after missing a free throw. It was just another basketball IQ play that cost us.”

Scott fouled out.

“We had called timeout to set up something,” Saxon said. “We were going to take the ball down, and we got lucky and scored to take it to overtime. Once we took it to overtime I felt a little better because two of their girls fouled out. That was good for us. The girls stepped up when they had to.”

Malito made 1-of-2 sending the game into overtime.

In overtime, the Irish were without the services of Gray along with Scott.

Ursuline took a 55-53 lead in overtime less than a minute in, but saw Girard respond with a 7-0 run highlighted by two big buckets from Malito and Madison Logue.

“I just think we lost the momentum,” Scott said. “Once we went to overtime, we lost two of our key players. We should have won in regulation. I just think the girls lost any momentum they had.

“We gave it away. We shot 21-of-45 from the free throw line. If we make our free throws, we ice the game with no problem. They get it to overtime. They were able to push forward. I felt like we lost more so than them beating us.”

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