ATHENS — After some high school March Madness in the Convo Tuesday night, Big Red is going to the Elite 8.

Santino Haney drove to the paint and got a shot to fall with 2.5 seconds left in overtime, lifting Steubenville to a thrilling 74-72 victory over Columbus Bishop Hartley in the Division III, Region 11 semifinals inside Ohio University’s Convocation Center.

Haney’s bucket came after the game was deadlocked three times in the final two minutes. Big Red led 72-70 with less than a minute to go before the Hawks (18-4) tied the game on a putback from an offensive rebound by Rowan Smith with 19 seconds to go.

Big Red came the other way and called timeout with seven seconds left, setting up the winning play.

Hartley had tied the game on a similar putback at the end of regulation to force the extra period.

Overtime started with Cole Bowers knocking down 3s on the first two Big Red (24-1) possessions. He finished with seven long-range makes on the night and a team-high 23 points.

Haney tallied 22 on the night, the last two being the biggest two, and had five of those points in overtime.

The game was a back-and-forth battle from start to finish. Big Red led by one after one, two after two and three after three. They started with the first five points of the game, and Hartley came right back to tie it — a foreshadow of things to come.

Big Red led by four twice in the second quarter, but never were able to pull ahead by more than two possessions. The pace picked up early in the second quarter with the teams trading buckets, Steubenville holding a 30-28 lead going to the break.

Early in the third quarter, Haney knocked down a 3 to give Big Red its first five-point lead since the first minute of the game, but the Hawks scored the next five to re-tie the game. Big Red then again scored the next five, but again the game was tied after Hartley pushed back.

After the 40-40 deadlock, the score was tied three more times (42-all, 44-all and 46-all) before Big Red led 49-46 going to the fourth quarter on a late Tre Wiggins triple.

Two Cole Bowers treys early in the fourth opened the lead back up to five, then he set up younger brother Landon Bowers with an assist to make it a seven-point Big Red lead with five minutes to play, the biggest lead for either side in the game.

Hartley, though, was not going away as Kent State commit Jakhi Calloway swished a 3 the other way to start a Hawks rally, capped by Caleb Oneil tying the game at 61-all with just over a minute to play.

Jermaine Moore sunk a bucket with 26 seconds to go to put Big Red back on top, and the Hawks’ shot to tie it the other way did not fall, but Hartley’s Isaac King grabbed the rebound and got his buzzer-beating putback to fall to extend the game.

In the extra time, however, the late heroics belonged to Big Red.

With the win, which avenged a loss to Hartley in last year’s regionals, Steubenville earned itself another trip to the Convo as they will return to Ohio University for the Region 11 Championship game Saturday afternoon. A first trip to the state Final Four since 1952 will be on the line.

They will take on Columbus Bishop Watterson (21-5) at noon in the Convo. Watterson defeated Marietta 52-42 in the other semifinal in the Convo on Tuesday evening.