CLARION - Five times the Karns City boys basketball team had the ball with a chance to tie the score or move ahead in the second half.

Five tries, five failures.

The Gremlins never could deal the clutch blow when they needed it. Instead, a key turnover or a jump shot that clanked off the rim prevented Karns City from evening the score against Keystone.

The result was a tense 54-52 win by the Panthers Monday night at Tippin Arena.

The win launched Keystone into the District 9 Class AA championship at 8 p.m. Saturday against Moniteau.

The loss ended the season for Karns City.

"We just didn't pull it out," said point guard Tyler Callihan.

It didn't help that Karns City (12-14) was a meager 4-of-12 from the free throw line.

"Bottom line, we didn't make foul shots and Keystone did," Armagost said. "Keystone is a pretty good doggoned team."

It also didn't help the Gremlins that they fell behind by a big margin early - again.

The MO for Karns City has been the same for the past several weeks: fall behind, catch up.

This time, the Gremlins could not catch up after falling behind 14-2 after just three minutes of play.

"I can't explain it," Andreassi said. "Early in the year, we came out quick. Late in the year, in big games, we've started slowly. You can blame it on being inexperienced, but inexperienced teams don't come back like we have. We played our hearts out."

Callihan, who scored 29 points in the loss against Keystone, is also at a loss to explain it.

"That's just sort of the way our season has gone," he said.

Keystone coach Greg Heath said Callihan was going to get his points. The key was limiting the output of the rest of the Gremlins, which the Panthers did.

"We tried to get a quick double team on him, but we didn't do that very much," Heath said. "I wasn't comfortable doing that a lot because their other guys are just scary enough. I was afraid the other guys would hurt us, I guess."

They didn't. Shayne Bell was the Gremlins' second-leading scorer with nine points.

Karns City did a good job on the all-time District 9 leading scored, Garrett Heath, holding the senior to just 14 points.

But Sam Swartzfager scored 16 points for the Panthers.

"I thought they had a real good defensive scheme," said Greg Heath.

Karns City climbed back into the game in the first half, thanks to a long shooting drought by Keystone.

The Panthers missed 14 consecutive shots in the second quarter as the Gremlins made up their early 12-point deficit.

But the only basket of the game by Scott Perez gave Keystone the lead for good late in the second quarter.

"I think we got our early cushion and guys started thinking, 'OK, let's start firing shots up,'" Heath said. "We were taking quick shots we didn't need to take by people who didn't need to take them.

"We looked rusty. We didn't play very well."

But just well enough to overcome salvo and salvo from Karns City.

It was a gutsy performance from a team that was an unknown commodity heading into the season.

Most of the core is coming back, including Callihan, who was the leading scorer in Butler County.

"We have a good nucleus coming back," Andreassi said. "We have a bunch of juniors who showed their wares this year. I expect we'll have our shot again."