POTTSVILLE - Marian head coach Paul Brutto had to be happy that his team held an eight-point lead at halftime, considering it turned the ball over 10 times.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough as Pine Grove scored the first 11 points of the second half and used a tenacious defense to earn a 38-32 overtime victory over the Fillies."First of all, it (the lead) should have been bigger at halftime," said Brutto afterward. "We had a lot of unforced turnovers and missed a lot of peepers. We went around six or seven minutes without a basket. It happens. And it's the first time it happened to us this year. But you can't do that against a scrappy team like Pine Grove."We talked about when offenses don't work, you have to make plays. And we couldn't find anyone to make some consistent plays on offense. They played good defense. They didn't let us run any sets real well. It's a balance of you could have done better, but they did a good job at the same time."The early third quarter run and the fact that the Fillies couldn't buy a bucket, gave the Cardinals a 24-23 lead entering the fourth period.With 3:05 left in the contest, the Fillies lost Vanessa Whitecavage, who went down with a knee injury. Brianna Raabe came in and made two free throws to cut the Pine Grove lead to one. Two Jennifer Kaufman free throws sent the Fillies down by three, but a three-pointer by Savanna Krushinsky with 1:38 left was the tying basket that sent the game into overtime.Both teams had a chance to win it in regulation. The Fillies turned it over twice in the final 11 seconds, while the Cardinals did the same.The Cardinals took charge in the extra four-minute session to send the Fillies down to their fifth loss of the season."Obviously not having Vanessa in the overtime knocks you out of whack because we're used to her being on the court pretty much," Brutto noted. "We had three inside shots in the overtime with a chance to put the pressure on them and we missed them. Then they go down and score and the pressure is on us. Give the kids a lot of credit, being down five and being able to come back to send it into overtime. That was nice to see."Pine Grove head coach Bill Evans made no bones about it that his team tried to go after the Fillies defensively."Some nights shots fall, some nights they don't fall," said Evans. "If you make a living with your defense, you're always in the game. And that's what we try to stress to the girls."I think our intensity the last three or four minutes of the game was big for us. I thought our team played great. Our press wasn't as effective tonight as I hoped it would be. Marian did a really nice job breaking our zone press. We mixed it up a little bit and went man press on them and did a little better there."I thought we did a good job containing Krushinsky and did a slightly better job on Karnish. The girls played great."Melissa Edge finished with 15 points to lead the Cardinals. Karnish had 12 and Krushinsky 10 for Marian.BIG BOARDS… Despite the loss, Marian held a 35-16 edge in rebounding with Krushinsky grabbing 17 and Madison Stoyer eight.SECOND HALF DROUGHT… Marian made just three-of-21 attempts from the floor in the second half and overtime, with its first points after the break coming with 49 seconds left in the third quarter on a layup by Whitecavage.UP NEXT… The Cardinals (14-10) will face No. 1 seed Minersville (26-0) on Friday for the district championship. Both teams will enter the PIAA Inter-districts a week from Friday.PINE GROVECay. Conrad 0-0-2-0, R. Edge 2-1-2-5, Shiffer 0-5-6-5, Kaufman 1-4-6-7, M. Edge 6-3-5-15, Car. Conrad 2-0-1-4, Boyer 1-0-0-2, Sleva 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 12-13-22-38.MARIANWhitecavage 3-0-0-6, Correale 0-0-0-0, Agosti 0-0-0-0, Krushinsky 3-3-5-10, Raabe 0-2-2-2, Karnish 5-2-5-12, Stoyer 1-0-4-2. TOTALS: 12-7-16-32.Pine Grove 5 6 13 6 8 - 38Marian 9 10 4 7 2 - 32Three-pointers: Pine Grove - Kaufman 1; Marian - Krushinsky 1.