On a night where Bradford High honored its seniors ahead of their final home game, it took a collective effort from that group to lead the Owls to a win.

Bradford’s six seniors — Caleb Nuzzo, Owen Kane, Evan Schmidt, Peyton Manion, Steven Knowlton and Tyler Gigliotti — provided all of Bradford’s scoring as the Owls survived a triple-overtime battle against D9 League foe Punxsutawney, 67-60, to snap a two-game losing streak.

“I’m happy for those guys,” BAHS coach Brian Hobbs said. “They’ve put in a lot of time and hard work, and I’m happy for them tonight. They finished the game out with five seniors on the floor, and it was nice for them to get a win tonight.”

Not only did that group provide all of Bradford’s scoring, but two players in particular — Knowlton and Schmidt — came up big in the game’s most crucial moments.

Knowlton, who scored 20 points for the Owls (12-9, 4-5), was the first to provide some heroics. With his team trailing 45-43 in the game’s waning seconds, the guard caught an inbound pass, raced down the court and hit a contested layup as the buzzer sounded to send the game to overtime.

“It was a full-court set where we crossed (Gigliotti) and Steven to get a catch. We were just trying to loop those guys, and Steven came back around,” Hobbs said. “He caught it, and he’s quick. He covered some serious ground, and put up a contested layup, but he finished strong.”

It was the second time Knowlton provided crucial points for Bradford against the Chucks (7-14, 0-9). In the teams’ first meeting on Jan. 17, a 42-33 Bradford win, Knowlton led the Owls in scoring with 13 points.

“He’s had a breakthrough,” Hobbs said of Knowlton. “We got to the end of the first half of the season, and he started getting into the flow… This is the Steven we know, and he can be a threat on the floor offensively and defensively.”

And then after the teams battled back and forth through the first two overtime periods, Schmidt took the game over. The forward poured in seven of his nine points in the third overtime period, and provided the exclamation point that sealed the deal for the Owls.

As a Punxsy player was lining up an open three, Schmidt leaped into the air to block the shot, then recovered the loose ball and scored on a layup to put Bradford ahead 66-60 with 56 seconds left and send the Owl faithful into a frenzy.

“That was huge,” Hobbs said of the play. “The (Punxsutawney) kid kind of took his time getting the shot off, and Evan closed out, got by him and it was huge. He did a nice job there of staying under control. It was a big play, and it was the game-changer.”

Gigliotti paced the Owls in scoring with 23 points, but those scores weren’t easy to come by. Though the Owls finished 21-for-53 from the field, they went just 4-for-19 from 3-point range and didn’t make any shots from beyond the arc after halftime. Bradford also committed turnovers and inopportune times that allowed the Chucks to get out in transition.

“Punxsy does a really nice job of making the game ugly,” Hobbs said. “You get the ball in positions you don’t normally have it in, and guys struggle until they figure it out. In the third overtime, that’s when our guys kind of figured out where the screen needed to be set, and Evan did a nice job of coming off and finishing.”

Even as the Owl offense struggled early on, though, the defense was there to keep Bradford in the game. The Chucks shot just 16-for-52 from the field and a lackluster 3-for-15 from downtown.

Punxsy was led in scoring by Micah Kreibel’s 19 points and Daren Byers 16. Of Byers’ 16 points, 11 came at the charity stripe.

“Their main scorer coming in was Byers, and we knew we had to keep him in check,” Hobbs said. “He had 16, but we played some extra quarters. We focused on him and tried to limit his touches.”

The Owls won’t get to rest on their laurels, by any means. Bradford visits Brookville today in its regular season finale. The Raiders took game one this year, 63-41.

“We’ve talked this week about digging deep and finding that will inside to make things happen,” Hobbs said. “I want our guys to get back to that old school mentality of ‘you can do it, you just have to have the will.’ Hopefully we have the will to come out and play a tough Brookville team, get after it and get a win.”

And then after Brookville, the postseason awaits. The Owls will have nearly two weeks to gear up for this year’s District 9 Class AAAA championship game, set for Feb. 27, where they’ll once again face Clearfield. The Bison have narrowly edged Bradford in each of the last two championship games by scores of 63-61 and 42-36.

Despite the looming title game, though, Hobbs wants his players to focus on the task at hand and take things one day at a time.

“I think it was important we got a win (against Punxsutawney), and I think it’s important to make a very good effort (tonight) at Brookville,” he said. “We need to figure a few things out that we need to clean up, and winning two in a row would be nice to go into the postseason.

“And then we’ll have a long layoff of almost two weeks before we’ll play again, so the guys will have to come to practice ready to clean up some of the sloppiness and then be ready for a District championship game.”

AT BRADFORD

Punxsutawney (60)

Micah Kriebel 6 5-6 19, Daren Byers 2 11-11 16, Nick Humble 3 5-9 11, Young 1 0-2 2, Wehrle 1 0-2 2, Presloid 2 3-6 7, Dingor 1 1-1 3. Totals: 16 25-37 60

Bradford (67)

Tyler Gigliotti 6 10-14 23, Steven Knowlton 6 6-10 20, Manion 2 1-2 5, Schmidt 4 1-4 9, Kane 2 0-0 4, Nuzzo 1 3-4 6. Totals: 21 21-34 67

Punxsutawney 12 19 31 45 50 56 60

Bradford 13 22 31 45 50 56 67

Three-point goals: Punxsy 3 (Kriebel 2, Byers 1), Bradford 4 (Knowlton 2, Gigliotti 1, Nuzzo 1); Total fouls: Punxsy 25, Bradford 25; fouled out: Presloid (P), Kriebel (P), Manion (B), Piscitelli (B)

JV: Punxsutawney won, 52-49

Freshmen: Bradford won, 46-31. (Lucas Johnson 25 points.)