CLARION — The season ended a little early for Karns City junior point guard Dave Olszak's liking.

At the same time, the way the Gremlins' season ended raised his future expectations.

Second-seeded Karns City was upset in overtime of a District 9 Class AA semifinal playoff game by sixth-seeded Brookville, 37-34, Tuesday night at Tippin Gymnasium.

The Raiders (10-14) also beat the Gremlins 60-47 earlier this season. Karns City, which beat Kane 44-43 last Thursday in the quarterfinals, hadn't won a playoff game since 2005.

“I think it raises our expectations. After so long of being unsuccessful, you kind of lower your standards,” Olszak said. “Now that we tasted success, we have our standards set that we can strive for and not be surprised when it happens.”

Olszak, who scored a team-high 14 points and grabbed eight rebounds, provided Karns City with its last lead.

On the first possession of overtime, Olszak buried a 3-pointer to put the Gremlins ahead 34-31. Nate Shirts, who finished with a game-high 18 points for Brookville, answered with two layups to put the Raiders ahead 35-34 with 51 seconds left.

Overtime wasn't kind to the Gremlins' offense. Karns City had two turnovers, two missed shots and missed the front end of a one-and-one twice.

“We haven't been in this type of atmosphere at Karns City in a while. Thursday was our first playoff game in how long?” Gremlins coach Chris Bellis said. “These kids haven't experienced that and we don't have enough playoff experience. We got good looks. We didn't make our shots.”

Brookville kept the pace slow and focused on preventing Tyler Kepple from scoring.

After Logan Moroney scored to put the Gremlins ahead 7-6 with 7:23 left before halftime, the Raiders responded with a 10-0 run. Brookville rode the momentum to lead 18-11 at the half.

Raiders' coach Kevin Wolfe put Shirts in to try and stop Kepple, who finished 2-of-11 from the field and scored five points.

Kepple was averaging 15 points per game.

“We put Nate on him to put the extra length and deter him from shooting the 3s,” Wolfe said. “We would have liked to see him close out quicker.”

After halftime, Brookville continued the pressure. Tate Canavan gave the Raiders their biggest lead of the game, 22-11, after scoring off a steal.

“They started pressuring and we backed up a bit and didn't handle it well,” Olszak said. “They were getting up on their feet and had active hands. We were taught to attack it and we backed off it.”

That's when Karns City's shots started to fall. The Gremlins reeled off an 11-0 run, tying the game on an Olszak jumper with 17 seconds left in the third quarter.

“We finally made some shots. We tried to pressure a little more on defense and got a couple baskets on turnovers,” Bellis said. “In the first half, we weren't extending as much.”

Nathan Weckerly made the big shot for Karns City (15-8) to force overtime. He buried a 3-pointer with 51 seconds remaining to tie the game at 31.

After a Brookville miss, Olszak had a potential game-winning 3-pointer blocked at the buzzer.

Moroney finished with a game-high 15 rebounds for the Gremlins.

“I think we've come a long way.” Bellis said. “Now, we need to find a way to put the ball in the basket.”

BROOKVILLE 37

Nate Shirts 9 0-2 18, Tate Canavan 4 3-4 11, Taite Truman 1 0-0 2, Ben Cudworth 2 0-1 4, Jack Huggins 0 0-0 0, Braiden Smith 1 0-0 2. Totals: 17 3-7 37.

KARNS CITY 34

David Olszak 6 1-2 14, Ethan Conto 0 0-0 0, Tyler Kepple 2 0-1 5, Logan Moroney 3 1-3 7, Dan Filges 0 0-0 0, Dave Markel 2-7 5, Nathan Weckerly 1 0-0 3, Christian Turner 0 0-0 0, Dalton Callihan 0 0-0 0. Totals: 14 2-6 34.

Brookville 4 14 6 7 6 — 37

Karns City5 6 13 7 3 — 34

3-point goals: Karns City 3 (Markel, Kepple, Weckerly)