(Photo: Clarion’s Skylar Rhoades finishes a layup over Karns City’s Micah Rupp during Thursday’s Bobcats win. Photo by Mary Rearick)

The fourth-seeded Bobcats (15-8) had watched an 11-point lead, 34-23, three minutes into the second half turn into a two-point advantage, 34-32, by the end of the third quarter thanks to a 9-0 Karns City run to end the quarter.

But two seniors rose to the occasion early in the fourth quarter for Clarion, as Skylar Rhoades twice fed Nick Frederick in the opening minute of the quarter on what looked identical plays to push the lead back to six, 38-32, and the Bobcats never led by fewer than four the rest of the way.

“(It) was a super big win, and it feels awesome,” Rhoades, who finished with 10 points, six assists, four rebounds and a steal while being named the Hager Paving Player of the Game, said. “It feels really good.”

After the Rhoades to Frederick connection restored equilibrium to things for Clarion, Hunter Craddock took over scoring five straight points for the Bobcats to keep the lead at six, 43-37. Three of Craddock’s points were a direct result of offensive rebounds, as he gathered four offensive boards on his way to eight rebounds and 11 points — seven points in the fourth quarter.

The play of Craddock, Rhoades and Frederick, who finished with seven points, helped compliment Cal German, who led all scorers with 23 points while adding five assists, three rebounds and three steals.

“They’ve been playing all year,” Clarion’s first-year head coach Scott Fox said. “Skylar is probably one of our best passers. He’s been doing it all year. I’ve got three or four guys that we can go to and score seven to 10 points outside of Calvin, which helps him.”

Still leading by just four, 43-39, following a Micah Rupp basket for Karns City with 3:22 to play, Clarion out the game away with a 6-0 spurt that started with a Rhoades basket and continued with Rhoades feeding German for a score and Craddock finished off the run with a feed from German to make it 49-39 with just over a minute to play.

The game started out at a frantic pace with each team scoring 16 first-quarter points.

Chase Beighley, who finished with 21 points for Karns City, totaled nine in the first eight minutes for the Gremlins (13-9) while German went off for 11 for Clarion.

“(German starting fast) helps everybody else,” Fox said. “Because then they need to focus more on him and try to shut him down, and it opens up for everybody else.”

Clarion pulled out to a 28-21 halftime lead thanks to six second-quarter points from Rhoades, although the senior said he doesn’t worry about scoring.

“I just play as hard as I can,” Rhoades said. “I don’t care about stats at all. I just want the win.”

Watch Rhoades’ full postgame interview:

The lead grew to the 11 points early in the third quarter before Karns City got back into the game by getting to the free-throw line connecting on 7 of 8 charity shots in the final 3:05 of the third quarter, including four from Nathan Waltman, who scored six of his 10 points in the third quarter. Luke Garing also played a key role in the run on defense coming away with three steals.

“They were in 1-3-1,” Fox said. “We worked on it in practice, but they trapped us in the right spots, and we threw some bad passes that we shouldn’t have thrown. But, they worked hard in it, and it showed. We got panicked a little bit, tried to force it.”

Rupp, just a freshman, added eight points, 10 rebounds and two blocked shots in the loss for Karns City.

Clarion will play top-seeded Keystone in the semifinals Tuesday. It will be the fourth meeting of the season between the neighboring schools with Keystone winning the first two but Clarion taking the latest matchup in late January.

“It feels great,” Fox said of getting his first playoff win as a head coach. “I can’t wait until Tuesday now.”

THE COACH AND THE SCRIBE

Chris Rossetti and Jess Quinn talked about the game on another edition of the Coach and the Scribe Powered by the Rehab Centre with six locations including in Clarion, Brookville and Kittanning.

CLARION 54, KARNS CITY 48

Score by Quarters

Karns City 16 5 11 16 — 48
Clarion 16 12 6 20 — 54

KARNS CITY — 48

Caiden Corbett 1 0-0 3, Micah Rupp 4 0-0 8, Chase Beighley 7 4-4 21, Eric Booher 0 0-0 0, Daunte Young 0 0-0 0, Luke Garing 1 1-2 3, Nathan Waltman 2 5-8 10, Ethan McElroy 1 0-0 3. Totals 16 10-14 48.

CLARION — 54

Cal German 8 6-7 23, Beau Verdill 1 0-0 2, Kyle Porciello 0 0-0 0, Hunter Craddock 5 1-2 11, Josh Craig 0 1-2 1, Sylar Rhoades 5 0-1 10, Nick Frederick 2 3-4 7. totals 21 11-16 54.

Three-pointers: Karns City 6 (Beighley 3, Waltman, McElroy, Corbett). Clarion 1 (German)

RIDGWAY 50, SMETHPORT 27

KANE, Pa. — Outscoring Smethport by 31 points over the final three quarters of play, third-seeded and defending champion Ridgway rolled to a 50-27 win over the sixth-seeded Hubbers in the District 9 Class 2A quarterfinals at Kane High School.

The Elkers (17-7) started slowly and trailed 11-3 at the end of the first quarter but outscored the Hubbers (13-10) 47-16 the rest of the way including 36-11 in the second half and 17-4 in the final 4:20.

Matt Dush started things rolling for Ridgway scoring six of his 18 points in the second quarter to get the Elkers within two, 16-14, at halftime.

Ridgway then started the second half on a 10-3 run to take a 24-19 lead late in the third quarter and led 26-21 by the end of the quarter.

The lead grew to 33-23 with 4:20 to play, and then the Elkers blew the game open with the game-ending 17-4 with Dush finishing the fourth quarter with eight more points and Zack Zameroski adding five of his 16 in the final eight minutes and 11 of his points in the second half.

Dan Park chipped in seven points in the win for Ridgway.

Conner Alfieri led Smethport (13-10) with 11 points, seven in the first half with Richie McDowell chipping in six tallies on a pair of first-half 3-pointers.

In a rematch of the last two District 9 Class 2A title games, Ridgway will face Coudersport in the semifinals Tuesday.