BELLAIRE’S LIZZIE McAninch (13) drives to the basket as Martins Ferry’s Ella McFarland defends during Monday night’s thriller inside ‘The House of Champions.’ The Big Reds rallied for a 57-56 victory over the Purple Riders.

BELLAIRE — A youthful Bellaire team picked up a huge confidence-builder Monday night in girls’ high school basketball action.

Starting three freshmen, a sophomore and a junior, the Big Reds (2-1) were what head coach John Farrier called “relentless” in their 57-56 come-from-behind victory over visiting Martins Ferry inside ‘The House of Champions’ on Guernsey Street.

“If there’s one word that we’ve been saying to our girls all year it’s been relentless. We’ve got to battle and battle,” Farrier said. “We’ve got a good group that can run and run and get after people. We have to be able to wear teams down.

“If tonight’s performance didn’t personify relentless, I don’t know what does,” he added. “We could’ve hung our heads but we kept battling.”

Freshman Zara Harveth’s layin with 4.4 seconds left capped the rally and Martins Ferry was unable to get off a last shot. The home crowd celebrated as the final buzzer sounded.

With 6.4 ticks showing on the clock, Farrier called timeout to draw up the final play.

“We’ve got a different variation of that play,” Farrier said of the game-winning setup, “but I changed it up a little because of the way they (Ferry) were playing. It pretty much worked to perfection. The neat thing about it was that my niece was the one that scored the basket. it was a great pass by Eliana and a perfect layin by Zara.

Bellaire trailed from the outset and was behind by a game-high 13 points (42-29) at the mid-point of the third quarter. However, as their head coach described, they battled and battled, cutting the deficit to eight with a quarter remaining before outscoring Martins Ferry 18-9 in the decisive final panel.

Down five, 54-49, with 4:45 left to play, the Big Reds went on a 6-0 run that was also started by Harveth, one of the promising frosh. The 5-7 power forward netted 10 of her team-best 17 points in the fourth quarter.

Harveth gave the Big Reds their first lead of the game at 55-54 with 1:15 left, but the Purple Riders countered with Maria Clark basket at the 41-second mark to re-take the lead, 56-55, and set the stage for the last-second dramatics.

“We didn’t deserve to win,” Martins Ferry head coach Dave Reasbeck offered. “I’m not mad. We didn’t deserve to win. We turned the ball over. We didn’t rebound and we were very sloppy.

“Bellaire deserved to win. They played hard and made the shot at the end,” he added. “We had better learn from tonight.”

In addition to Harveth’s double-digit performance, sophomore Allie Ault added a dozen lightings. Sophia Porter chipped in seven off the bench, while Mason, Lizzie McAninch and Rhyan O’Grady all had six each. Clark led all scorers in the game with 19 for the visitors. Allarah Jones had 11 and Lindse Sidon had seven off the bench. Hunter Pollock finished with six.

Bellaire also won the battle on the boards, 39-33, as Harveth completed a double-double with 10 and Mason pulled down a game-leading 11 while also charting half-a-dozen steals and a handful of assists. Lindsey Best and Clark each had eight boards.

Both teams turned the ball at an alarming rate, with Martins Ferry having 29 and Bellaire 25.

“I don’t know if other people knew it, but we’ve got a shot at being pretty good if we keep working hard and getting better,” Farrier allowed. “That’s a good team that Ferry has. I love playing against (Dave) Reasbeck teams because you know they are going to play hard. It was a fun game.”

Both squads return to the hardwood Thursday as Bellaire plays in the Brooke Holiday Tournament while Martins Ferry hosts St. Clairsville.