KANE — Make no mistake about it, Friday’s District 9 Class A consolation game between Otto-Eldred and Elk County Catholic won’t be remembered for its beauty.

With more turnovers than made field goals between the two teams, and a second half that saw just 29 total points, offense — and made baskets — were at a premium.

But for what the game lacked in style, it more than made up for in effort and suspense, as the two teams ultimately battled down to the wire before the fourth-seeded Lady Crusaders pulled out a 46-41 win over third-seeded O-E at Kane High School.

The win gives ECC (16-11) a much better draw in the first round of the next week’s state playoffs, where it’ll face the loser of the District 5 title game today between Tussey Mountain and Shanksville. Otto-Eldred (16-8), meanwhile, will have to play District 7 champion Rochester.

“You want to go in on a positive note,” Elk County Catholic head coach Ken Pistner said. “Proud of how they held their composure, how disciplined they played, and just to come away with a win.”

Despite how it ended, the game started off as an offensive slugfest between the two teams. Otto-Eldred scored the first five points of the game before the two teams traded buckets right up until ECC jumped ahead to grab a narrow 16-14 lead after one.

Both teams stayed hot in the second frame, and the two sides combined to make 22 field goals in the first half. The Lady Terrors re-took the lead, 25-24, with a couple of minutes to go until intermission. But the Lady Crusaders poured in nine straight points to surge to a 33-25 lead and stun Otto-Eldred heading into half.

Taylor Newton had 10 and Brooke Bauer eight over the first 16 minutes, but Pistner was more worried about getting things right at the other end of the court.

“(Otto-Eldred) came in with a good plan and I thought we came out flat,” Pistner admitted. “A lot of times the consolation games — for both teams — are tough to get yourself motivated for. But it’s an important game, it’s good to be (District 9’s third seed) instead of 9-4. I thought defensively early in the game, it really wasn’t our best performance.

“We pride ourselves in defense a little more than that. In the second half we only gave up 16 points and that’s why we won; we played better defense. It wasn’t because we played better offense, it was because of the better defense.”

Though Pistner got what he wanted from his charges on defense, the Lady Terrors also came out with a much better defensive effort out of the break on their end. After allowing ECC to score the first four points out of halftime to push its lead to 37-25, Otto-Eldred clamped down.

Morgan Dalton knocked in back-to-back shots, and Katie Sheeler added a 3-pointer as O-E outscored its opponents 7-0 over the final seven minutes of the quarter.

Building right off that momentum against a beleaguered ECC team, Otto-Eldred’s Reilly Raught went to work at the start of the fourth. The junior scored the first six points of the period and capped off a 13-0 Lady Terror spurt to put them back in the lead by one, 38-37, with just over six minutes to play.

Keying that nine-minute shutout streak for O-E was keeping Newton — one of District 9’s top scorers — in check after her strong first half by switching to a zone defense.

“We started out in man and put Reilly on her and all of the other eight eyes were supposed to be on (Newton), except for Haley Cousins who was on (Bauer) there because we know she could shoot the ball, especially when she’s standing still,” Otto-Eldred head coach Shawn Gray said. “We doubled her anytime we could, but in hindsight I should have gone to zone sooner and not put so much pressure on my kids to guard her one-on-one.”

After Raught’s six-point run, Bauer finally broke ECC’s scoreless drought on the next possession with her third 3-pointer of the game to put the Lady Crusaders back ahead.

From there, the two teams traded points — and turnovers — for the next couple of minutes.

But after Bri Heller made one of her two free-throw attempts to pull her Lady Terrors to within one, 42-41, with 2:33 to play, the Lady Terror offense went cold. O-E had a couple of good looks at the basket that didn’t fall, including a Sheeler 3-point attempt that rolled around with 40 seconds to go, and Newton sealed the game by putting back her own missed free throw with under 20 seconds to play that gave the Lady Crusaders a 45-41 advantage.

“Like I told the team, every game is not going to be pretty and we found a way to win like good teams do,” Pistner said. “I thought we were disciplined down the stretch. I thought when we had the one-point lead, the two-point lead, we didn’t come down and rush things and put up crazy shots. We worked for good shots.”

The two teams combined for 37 turnovers in the game, with Otto-Eldred committing 20. That sloppiness, along with his team’s inability to get some crucial shots in the paint to fall, had Gray frustrated postgame.

“When we play some good defensive teams, I don’t know what it is, they kind of get scared — especially around the rim and don’t finish,” he said. “I just told them in the locker room that we’ve got to play more in the offseason because you develop that… you just know when the contact is coming and when it’s not coming, and you learn to finish around the bucket. If we make a couple of shots, it’s a different ballgame. It seems like that’s how it’s been for us (this year), though.”

Sheeler had another solid all-around game for the Lady Terrors with seven points, eight assists, five rebounds and three steals. Haley Cousins, Heller and Raught all had eight points for the Lady Terrors, which enter the PIAAs on a two-game losing skid.

For ECC, though Newton registered a team-high 14, it was the contributions from Bauer (11 points) and Tammi Geci (9) that helped the Lady Crusaders pull away late as their star was held to just four in the second half.

“Taylor does so many things other than score,” Pistner said. “The reason we were getting good shots is because they were double and triple-teaming Taylor. She’s patient, and she didn’t force a lot of things and that gave us a win.”

AT KANE

Elk Catholic (46)

Taylor Newton 6 2-7 14, Brooke Bauer 4 0-0 11, Geci 3 3-4 9, Fledderman 2 0-1 4, Aikens 2 1-2 5, Weisner 1 0-0 2, Hasselman 0 1-2 1. Totals: 18 7-16 46

Otto-Eldred (41)

Haley Cousins 2 2-2 8, Kayley Heller 4 0-2 8, Reilly Raught 4 0-0 8, Sheeler 2 2-2 7, Dalton 3 0-0 6, Spinney 1 0-0 3, B. Heller 0 1-2 1. Totals: 16 5-8 41

Elk Catholic 16 33 37 46

Otto-Eldred 14 25 32 41

Three-point goals: ECC 3 (Bauer), O-E 4 (Cousins 2, Sheeler, Spinney)