BUTLER TWP - The Butler County Community College men's basketball team was starting to put some distance between itself and CCAC-South in Wednesday's first-round WPCC playoff game.

However, objects are sometimes closer than they appear.

The Pioneers built a 19-point lead with 8:28 remaining, but watched the Tigers cut the deficit to four with 1:19 on the clock.

The Pioneers regained control by sinking 10 of 12 free throws down the stretch, including an 8-for-8 performance by Moniteau graduate Matt Goettler, to post a 91-83 victory.

With the win, the Pioneers (17-9) will travel to either Community College of Beaver County or CCAC-Allegheny Saturday for second-round action.

"We had hoped to put it away in the second half," said Pioneers coach Tony Grenek. "But, my goodness, they kept coming and coming and coming. We're very fortunate."

"We played really hard in the end and almost caught them," said Tigers coach Rich Dunmire. "We were forced to foul and they were making it, and that makes it hard."

BC3 led 49-47 with 17:06 remaining in the game before the Pioneers went on a 12-2 run and scored 20 of 26 points to surge to a 69-53 lead.

Matt Lobaugh scored six points and Butler graduate Joel Rehm added five in that span.

CCAC's Jason Hood followed with a putback, but Butler countered with a 3-pointer by Goettler and a basket by Lobaugh to give the Pioneers a seemingly comfortable 74-55 lead.

Now it was the Tigers' turn to make a big stretch, limiting the Pioneers to just two baskets until the final minute of play.

South (10-13) rode the back of Hood, who sank four free throws and a 3 pointer to key an 11-2 spurt to make it 76-66 with 4:48 remaining.

Jeremy Peterson bumped the Pioneers' lead to 13 when he drained a trey, but South scored the next nine points, including consecutive 3-pointers from Hood and Khayree Wilson to make it 79-75 with 1:19 remaining.

"I thought we took some poor shots and forced some 1-on-4's," said Grenek. "They kept coming back and Hood was hitting those 3s from NBA range.

"We'd continue to come down and take bad shots and that's not like us," Grenek added.

Lobaugh's layup with 53.7 seconds left, followed by a pair of Goettler free throws, helped the Pioneers to open an 83-75 advantage.

"Matt wanted the ball tonight," said Grenek. "It's most likely his last game in this gym, him and Cory Robinson. "They've been here through good times and bad.

"They were on a team that won only seven games last year. We didn't want to see the season end. Matt was not going to let that happen," Grenek added.

A free throw by Hood and two by Brett Caldwell cut the margin to five. Goettler sank two more free throws, but a deep 3-pointer by Hood made it 85-81 with 26 seconds left.

But BC3 made six more free throws down the stretch to ice the game.

Hood and Caldwell were quite a scoring pair, dropping in 36 and 27 points, respectively.

The Pioneers had five players in double figures: Lobaugh (20), Peterson (18), Goettler (16), Rehm (12) and Will Miller (10). Chris Harmon chipped in with nine more points.

"We've been a balanced scoring team all year," said Grenek. "We've had eight players score over 100 points. That's definitely helped us because you can't key on one player."

CCAC-SOUTH (83)

Justin Mullen 2 1-2 6, Rob Grussic 1 0-1 2, Jason Hood 12 7-9 36, Khayree Wilson 2 0-0 5, Brett Caldwell 10 7-9 27, Tony Volk 1 0-0 3, Mark Bonacci 2 0-0 4. Totals: 30 15-21 83.

BCCC (91)

Chris Harmon 3 3-4 9, Jeremy Peterson 6 2-4 18, Grant Bailey 1 0-0 2, Joel Rehm 5 2-4 12, Matt Lobaugh 9 2-2 20, Will Miller 4 0-0 10, Matt Goettler 3 8-8 16, Cory Robinson 1 0-0 2, Tyler Hempfling 1 0-0 2. Totals: 33 17-22 91.

Three-point goals

- .Hood 5, Mullen, Wilson, Volk; Peterson 4, Miller 2, Goettler 2