KARNS CITY — It had to sweat out some tense moments in the second half, but Karns City avoided losing for the fourth time in five games.

The Gremlins' 18-point lead dissolved to just one in the fourth quarter before KC picked up its play on both ends of the court in a 77-62 boys basketball defeat of visiting Cranberry Friday night.

“We still aren't defending as well as we'd like to. That's how we got there (allowing Cranberry back in the game),” said KC coach Chris Bellis. “But it was nice to see the kids deal with that situation the way they did. They didn't panic.”

The Gremlins (12-7) led 38-20 late in the second quarter and carried a 40-28 edge into halftime. The Berries remained within striking distance and made their move in the fourth, scoring the first six points of the period on buckets from Alex Finch and J.T. Stahlman and a pair of free throws from Matt McQuaide.

The spurt pulled Cranberry to within 53-52, but the Berries never grabbed the lead or pulled even.

Chase Beighley had a lot to do with that.

KC's junior guard scored a conventional 3-point play for his team's first points of the period with 5:26 left. He then sank a trey 44 seconds later that gave the Gremlins a 59-54 lead.

“When I see that the score is close, I want to facilitate,” said Beighley, who scored a game-high 28 points. “I want to do something to get us going.

“In the first half, our intensity was really high,” added Beighley. “Then we stopped playing defense.”

Beighley's effort did just that as the Gremlins used a 13-2 run to put the game out of reach.

“We've played a lot of good teams tough this season,” said Berries' coach Patrick Irwin. “But we just didn't have quite enough firepower to pull it out and you saw that tonight. We just ran out of steam.”

Bellis was concerned with Cranberry senior forward Matt McQuaide, who scored 40 points in a win over Redbank Valley on Wednesday. He scored 11 against the Gremlins.

“We doubled down on him,” said Bellis, “but they had some other players step up.

That group included J.T. Stahlman (20 points) and Cameron Russell (16). The Berries made three treys the whole game, all of them from Russell in the second quarter as Cranberry (6-11) scored eight of the first half's final 10 points.

Junior forward Nathan Waltman had a strong game for the Gremlins with 16 points and 12 rebounds. Freshman Micah Rupp tallied 12 points and eight rebounds, pacing KC's offense in the third quarter in the face of Cranberry's comeback.

Caiden Corbett also scored 12 in the victory.

The Gremlins have already clinched a District 9 Class 2A playoff spot with three games remaining.

“We're probably looking at a fourth or fifth seed out of eight teams,” said Bellis.

CRANBERRY 62

Alex Finch 3 3-4 9, Ryan Groner 3 0-0 6, Matt McQuaide 2 7-8 11, Cameron Russell 6 1-6 16, J.T. Stahlman 10 0-0 20, Brandon Hutchinson 0 0-0 0. Totals: 24 11-18 62.

KARNS CITY 77

Caiden Corbett 5 0-0 12, Ethan McElroy 2 0-1 5, Daunte Young 1 0-0 2, Chase Beighley 9 5-5 28, Nathan Waltman 5 6-11 16, Luke Garing 0 2-2 2, Micah Rupp 4 4-8 12, Gage Cowoski 0 0-0 0, Eric Booher 0 0-0 0. Totals: 26 17-27 77.

Cranberry 12 16 18 16 — 62

Karns City19 21 13 24 — 77

3-point goals: Cranberry 3 (Russell 3); Karns City 8 (Beighley 5, Corbett 2, McElroy).

Saturday: Abraxas at Karns City