The St. Marys statistics speak for themselves.

One 3-pointer, a seven percent shooting performance in the first half, and 30 turnovers for the game.

For Bradford, those stats represented a suffocating defensive effort that helped to earn it a second straight trip to the District 9 Class AAAA title game.

The Owls (11-12) will get a chance at revenge against Clearfield after a dominant performance Friday night, beating St. Marys on both sides of the ball and earning a 58-35 victory.

From the opening tip, Bradford’s defense had its way with St. Marys. The Dutch (7-15) won the opening jump and had possession of the ball for the first 90 seconds, but couldn’t get any points. The Owls raced down the court and Tyler Gigliotti buried a layup a few seconds later to put Bradford in the lead. It never trailed from there.

“They burned a minute and a half off the clock, maybe more and I thought that kind of set the tone for the game,” Bradford coach Brian Hobbs said. “We forced them into 30 turnovers and like I said I thought that really set the tone that it was going to be easy for them and they’d really have to battle and have to earn everything.”

For as well as Bradford’s defense played, its offense struggled to get going. After the first quarter, the Owls made just two shots of their own and led 4-2.

But things changed quickly in the second period. Bradford hit three 3-pointers, got to the free-throw line, and outscored St. Marys 15-6. The Owls led just 19-8 at halftime, but it felt as if the game was already over.

The Dutch didn’t hit a single shot from the field in the second quarter and shot seven percent over the first 16 minutes.

“I don’t know if we’ve ever done that,” Hobbs said about holding a team without a FG in a quarter. “We talked a lot about trusting your teammates on defense and believing that everyone is going to execute defensively. That’s really helped and the kids have bought into that.”

These two teams were very familiar with each other coming into the game.

Bradford beat St. Marys 49-38 in its regular season finale on Monday night, and seemed to carry that defensive energy into Friday’s tilt.

“It’s nice, you can watch your film against them and can see what they are doing and pick it apart a little more in depth than if they were playing someone else because you are running your stuff,” Hobbs said.

Monday’s win snapped a five-game losing skid for the Owls, something Hobbs thought was much more important than tipping off St. Marys on any schemes or strategies.

“I thought the confidence was more important than not showing a game plan or just going out there and throwing the ball out.”

After a sluggish opening half for both teams, points started to come in bunches over the final 16 minutes. The Owls poured in 17 in the third and 22 in the fourth as the team was able to take advantage from the free-throw line (17-for-25) and from 3-point land (31 percent).

Tyler Gigliotti had another strong game for the Owls, scoring 15 of his game-high 26 points in the second half.

“He’s doing what he does,” Hobbs said. “He scores and then when they put the pressure on him he can get to the rack and pick up the fouls. He does a nice job from the free-throw line and went 8-for-8 in the fourth quarter. That’s huge.”

Steve Knowlton (eight points), Donny Pattison (four points, 11 rebounds) and Evan Schmidt (7 points) provided a solid supporting cast for Gigliotti.

St. Marys leading scorer Cahil Parrish was held to 10 points in the game, and made just three field goals.

“We put Caleb (Nuzzo) on Parrish because we knew he could score and we tried to deny him a lot,” Hobbs said. “We also always have Donny on one of their better scorers. Those two did a pretty good job tonight and we didn’t give up too much from the perimeter. We gave up one 3-pointer and it was to a sub.”

The Owls now gear up for a rematch against Clearfield in the Class AAAA title game on Wednesday at DuBois High.

Bradford fell to the top-seeded Bison (11-10) 42-36 last year.

Hobbs’ goal for this go-around in DuBois? Have his team better prepared on what they can expect from a strong defensive team.

“They are similar to what they were last year,” Hobbs said. “They lost a couple guys, but they are athletic, they are very well-coached.”

“I don’t know if I prepared our guys enough for the type of defense they played last year, but we will make sure that we go over a lot of it in the next couple of days to make sure they are ready to go and to know how to attack and take advantage of it.”

AT BRADFORD

St. Marys (35)

Lasko 1-1-2-3, Cahil Parrish 3-4-5-10, Caskey 1-0-0-3, Nunes 0-2-5-2, Mitchel Reiter 3-4-4-10, Walker 1-5-6-7. Totals: 9-16-22-35

Bradford (58)

Manion 0-0-4-0, Babcock 2-3-3-8, Pattison 2-0-1-4, Knowlton 3-0-0-8, Schmidt 3-1-1-7, Dixon 1-0-0-2, Tyler Gigliotti 7-10-12-26, Nuzzo 0-3-4-3. Totals: 18-17-25-58

St. Marys  2 8 21 35

Bradford   4 19 36 58

Three-point goals: St. Marys 1 (Caskey), Bradford 5 (Gigliotti 2, Knowlton 2, Babcock 1); total fouls: St. Marys 19, Bradford 15; fouled out: Nick Catalone (SM)