KARNS CITY — Falling behind by double digits in the first quarter is not the way Karns City coach Dave Kerschbaumer envisioned Thursday's game against Clarion.

If he did, it wouldn't have been like this.

The Gremlins trailed 16-5 after the first eight minutes, but made a spirited second-half push against the Bobcats.

However, the Bobcats scored the final 10 points of the game to pull away in a 50-37 KSAC girls basketball victory.

The Bobcats had seven steals in the first half, converting three steal and scores in the final two minutes to take the big lead.

"Sometimes you have to create your own breaks," said Kerschbaumer. "They were more physical than we were.

"In the first half, we just went through the motions. We've done that a couple of times this year,"Kerschbaumer added.

"That's our season," said Clarion coach Roger Walter. "We play on the defensive end and try to slow you down. You try to take out the best scorer too."

Karns City's Allyson Kepple had 11 first-half points, but was blanked in the second half.

"We put Marie (Rhoades) on her," said Walter. "We told her to stay low."

After baskets by Clarion's Shaina McNeil and Emily Fillman, the Gremlins found themselves on the short end of a 35-23 score with 6:12 left in the third quarter.

The Gremlins (14-10, 11-8) went on an 8-1 run to pull to within five, 36-31, with 2:01 left in the quarter.

Two baskets by Hannah Beck were sandwiched around a pair of free throws apiece by Katie Weibel and Kylee Rankin during that stretch.

The Bobcats (15-9, 13-6) were holding on to a 40-33 lead before Ashley Campbell rained two free throws and added a score 22 seconds apart to pull the Gremlins to 40-37 with 3:12 remaining.

"We had a two-minute spurt where we made some bad choices," said Walter. "We settled ourselves back down and got a couple of big shots."

From there, it was all Bobcats, as they rolled off the game's final 10 points.

"We didn't play real well most of the night," Kerschbaumer said. "We got more active and we got it to three and we just didn't finish it off. We made something like five turnovers at the end."

Kepple's 11 points led the Gremlins, while Campbell added 10. The Bobcats got 16 points from Chrissy Kriebel and 15 from Fillman.

"We ran some of the same stuff as we did in the first half," said Kerschbaumer on Kepple being shut out in the second half. "They just (played tough defense)."

CLARION 50Marie Rhoades 1 1-2 3, Shaina McNeil 3 3-4 9, Emily Fillman 6 3-4 15, Chrissy Kriebel 8 0-0 16, Erin Bean 3 1-3 7, Skyler Ganoe 0 0-0 0, Karyn Larson 0 0-0 0, Kaitlin Roth 0 0-0 0. Totals: 21 8-13 50.

KARNS CITY 37Allyson Kepple 5 0-0 11, Hannah Beck 2 0-0 4, Ashley Campbell 2 6-6 10, Katie Weibel 1 2-4 4, Kylee Rankin 0 3-4 3, Taylor Kerschbaumer 0 0-0 0, Caitlin Davis 0 0-0 0, Maureen McGreevy 2 1-2 5. Totals: 12 12-16 37.

Clarion 16 14 8 12—50Karns City 5 16 10 6—373-point goals: Kepple

Next Thursday or Friday: District 9 Class AA semifinal-Karns City vs. Kane, site and time to be determined