ST. CLAIRSVILLE — A high school basketball game is 32 minutes long. When playing an athletic team like Steubenville, the opposition can’t afford to relax for one minute, or in this case 2-minutes, 26-seconds.

St. Clairsville found that out the hard way Tuesday night. Leading by 10 points with a minute elapsed in the fourth quarter, visiting Big red went on a game-changing 17-0 run and never looked back in stunning the Red Devils, 81-74, on John Jenkins Court inside St. Clairsville High School.

“The live-ball turnovers in that one stretch just cost us. They got easy baskets and they feed off of that,” St. Clairsville head coach Ryan Clifford said. “They had a big dunk to start the quarter and that kind of jump-started them, but they played with energy.”

During Big Red’s fourth-quarter scoring spree, the Red Devils were guilty of five turnovers.

“That’s what you get when you play them. The do a really good job of applying relentless pressure,” Clifford noted. “They try to get you to crack and we had about a 2-minute stretch where we gave them easy baskets to get back in the game. I thought we made them take tough shots in the halfcourt all night. That’s how we got ahead.”

Calvin Bickerstaff got Steubenville started with a pair of buckets. Carlo Biasi made it 65-62 with a three and Nicco Bracone’s bonus goal on the next trip downcourt evened the score. A St. Clairsville (10-4) turnover led to a conventional three-point play by Jordan Wallace that gave Steubenville (12-2) the lead for good at 68-65. Baskets from Ryan Rauch and Bickerstaff completed the blitz.

For Steubenville head coach Mike Haney, the comeback, which started from 18 points down late in the first half, came from outstanding play by Big Red bench.

“Our second team guys went in there in the first half because we had five guys with two fouls each and we’re big believers in keeping those guys out until the third quarter, so the second five kept us in it. We cut to 13 at the half,” he explained. “That was excellent. They did a great job.”

Rauch spearheaded the rally with 10 of his team-high 19 points coming in the third quarter when Steubenville pulled to within eight, 61-53. Jorian Jones had half of his dozen in the quarter to aid Rauch.

“We told the guys at halftime to quit fouling. We were committing dumb fouls … 40-feet from the basket,” Haney said of his team’s 14 first-half fouls. “They (St. C.) were shooting the bonus in the first quarter and the double bonus early in the second quarter. I thought we played smarter in the second half and we quit fouling.

“We had a couple of big three-point baskets there in the second half,” Haney added. “We don’t mind them shooting good three’s.”

Haney said the victory was big for a couple of reasons.

“It helps us in OVACs because it’s a bunch of points,” he noted. “They are also in our sectional/district, so there’s a lot of significance to it.”

In addition to Rauch, Big Red had four other players reach double digits with Bickerstaff (13 pts., 11 reb.) and Zimmerman (12 pts., 14 reb.) collecting double-doubles. Wallace added 10 off the bench.

St. Clairsville was led by Busby’s game-high 23 points, which included 11 of 15 from the free throw stripe. Craig Bober worked the paint for 18 points, 17 rebounds and blocked half-a-dozen shots. Nate Harris scored 12 and Brett Vike 10.

Steubenville heads north on Ohio 7 Friday night to East Liverpool. St. Clairsville, meanwhile, heads to Steubenville Saturday night to meet Catholic Central.

The victory gives Big Red a 16-9 advantage in the all-time series.