CONNERVILLE – In a game featuring 13 lead changes there should not be any glaring differences in the statistics.

Buckeye Local and Toronto battled through four quarters of basketball Tuesday night, with neither team holding more than a five-point advantage over the initial 32 minutes of play, and the only real difference being the Panthers’ early dominance on the glass, which was countered late by a last-second three-point bomb from Red Knights’ senior Jay Hanlin that forced overtime.

Senior Jake Mayle scored a game-high 19 points, 17 of those coming in the first half, while classmate Cameron Grabits tallied all 14 of his after the half, including five in the extra session, as the Panthers pulled away for a repeat 66-56 verdict over upset-minded Toronto at Buckeye Local High School.

The victory improves Coach Chris Heaton’s Buckeye Local squad to 7-3 on the season with a trip to River on the slate for tonight while Sean Tucker’s Knights, which dropped a lop-sided decision to the Panthers at home earlier this season, falls to 3-12.

“Teams have tried to take Jake (Mayle) and Mason (Brown) away from us, but our other three starters normally do a good job of picking up the slack and Ethan (McHugh), Cameron (Grabits) and Cameron (Best) all did that (Tuesday),” Heaton admitted.

The Panthers had built a 53-50 advantage on a McHugh charity toss with 14 seconds showing before Toronto rushed the ball down court, eventually ending up in the hands of Hanlin, who’s high-arching rainbow prayer from the corner was answered with a second remaining to force overtime.

Another McHugh free throw at 2:41 of overtime provided the first point of the extra session before a Shane Keenan hoop inside put the Red Knights back on top by a 55-54 margin. Grabits’ fall-away triple at 1:15 gave the hosts a two-point edge and the final lead change of the night at 57-55. A 9-1 Buckeye run at the end, including a couple of layups off long passes finished off the hard-fought victory.

Mayle and Toronto’s Brant Reeves dominated the opening quarter with the Panthers’ standout scoring 10 and the Toronto seniors dumping in seven for this team. The visitors managed a slim 13-12 edge after the first eight minutes of play thanks to a late Anthony Myslinsky trey. Mayle added seven more in the second as Buckeye Local led by as many as five at 24-19 before settling on a 31-28 lead at the break, the last two markers coming on a Mayle put-back just before the buzzer.

Rebounding and second change opportunities were the main reasons for the host’s lead as the Panthers held a 16-7 edge off the glass in the first half and out-rebounded Toronto by a 25-20 margin in the end.

“I felt like we did a good job keeping them off the boards,” Heaton said. “We have some guys that can really, jump and they went out and did it the entire game. Limiting them to one shot on their end was also big. We kept telling them just get stops and rebound and we were doing it.

“We knew coming in that Toronto was a much better team that what we saw earlier this season just from what we watched on film and we were right. I am really happy to get out of here with a win.”

McHugh and Brown both also finished with 14 points for the winners with McHugh capping the double-double with 13 rebounds and Brown matching Grabits with five points in overtime. Buckeye turned the ball over just seven times to 11 for their guests. Myslinsky had a team-high 15 points off the bench for Toronto before fouling out in the fourth quarter while Reeves added 13 and Keenan had 10 points and a team-high seven rebounds.

“When we go with a smaller lineup we need to be more aggressive and sometimes you lose sight of the fact that you aren’t crashing the boards enough,” Tucker admitted. “I felt like our kids worked their tails off for 32 minutes and if we just make three of nine layups we missed we win this game in regulation.

“We did a better job of attacking in the second half, we changed some things up on defense and we clamped down on number 14 (Mayle). We knew that number 23 (Grabits) was streaky and we were worried about him but we told the kids for them to win that was going to have to be who beat us in the second half and he did.

“I’m real proud of the effort the kids gave (Tuesday), especially how we lost to them earlier this season, but when you are playing an aggressive man defense you can’t lazy and have to stay aggressive and that falls on more to do a better job rotating kids in.”