Then Castagnolo realized the ball ended up in sharpshooter Jayme Ryan's hands.

A Lady Owl defender fell on the play, and Ryan was able to step back and calmly knock down the game-winning 3-pointer with 11 seconds on the clock, as the Lady Bisons won a defensive struggle, 35-33.

"There was only 15 seconds left, and then I saw Jayme and she had the ball in her hands," said Castagnolo. "She has the green light on stuff like that, and she made it.

"I'm just happy with the outcome because we've lost some games we should've won. Tonight we could've lost, but we refused to lose at the end."

On a night the Lady Bisons recognized their three seniors, a pair of juniors made the two biggest plays - including Ryan's 3-point shot.

Despite leading throughout the contest, Clearfield found itself down three points with under a minute left. Harmony was playing keep-away on the offensive end of the floor, when Lady Bison point guard Gwenn Porter jumped a pass and drove the length of the floor.

Porter laid the ball in and was fouled in the process. The fact the foul was ruled intentional added two foul shots on top of that and gave the Lady Bisons the ball with 42.5 seconds remaining.

Porter calmly made both to make it 32-31.

"Gwenn Porter took over," Castagnolo said. "She did an excellent job on defense - we were just overplaying and I didn't want them to foul. I was going to tell them when to foul.

"She got that steal and I thought that was the right call. I thought it was an intentional foul. Talk about gutty, after making the layup and getting flattened, she went up there, stepped up and made two foul shots."

The Lady Owls, who were limited to just 12 points through the first half, got a huge bucket from Alaina Westover to take the lead once more, but Ryan was able to connect on the trifecta to nullify the big play from the Harmony sophomore.

"That hurt us," said Harmony coach Joe Leyo of his team's first-half woes. "We just couldn't get the ball in the hoop. It definitely hurt us. When you leave a team in the game like that, then you'll have those issues down at the end of the game. I think the game was taken from us, but you still have to play the game.

"Alaina did a good job. She stepped up. When I need to put her in, she'll go in there and she'll play ... that's all I can ask for. She had a nice bucket at the end."

The Clearfield defense held Harmony without a bucket for nearly seven minutes of the first quarter before Alyson Leyo's jumper ended the drought at the 1:07 mark.

Leyo downed a pair of foul shots to make it 7-4 after the first, but the Lady Bisons were able to open up an eight-point lead in the second after opening the frame on a 9-4 run.

Harmony finished 1-of-10 from the floor in the first and 4-of-24 in the half, but the Lady Bisons didn't fare much better. Clearfield was just 7-of-21 through the first two quarters of play.

"I can't understand it," Leyo said. "It seemed like we were real flat, real tentative, real hesitant ... everybody. Everyone was just not there. We just weren't shooting. Again, that's what cost us. We played good defense. I thought we did a wonderful job on defense. That's what kept us in the game."

After trailing 16-12 at halftime, the Lady Owls' Megan Brink started attacking the basket and Harmony reaped the benefits.

Brink scored 11 of her 13 points in the second half, all of which came on layups or from the foul line.

Leyo and Neff also found some success under the basket, and Westover's go-ahead shot came from inside the paint.

"They found our weakness there in the third and fourth quarter," said Castagnolo.

"We have to make some adjustments. That's the only thing I wasn't happy with. I'll take the win, but I wasn't happy the way we played defense in the second half."

Clearfield (6-8) hosts Brookville on Friday, while Harmony (12-5) travels to Curwensville Monday.

The Lady Bisons also claimed the junior varsity game, 36-24. Julia Ammerman paced Clearfield with 13 points, while Lori Zalno added 10. Kaitlin Novella registered nine points in the loss for the Lady Owls.

Harmony-33

Brink 4 5-10 13, Leyo 5 3-6 13, Neff 1 3-4 5, M. Kruise 0 0-0 0, Westover 1 0-0 2, K. Kruise 0 0-0 0. Totals: 11 11-20 33.

Clearfield-35

Porter 2 2-2 6, Kovalick 2 2-2 7, Ja. Ryan 3 0-0 8, Janocko 2 1-4 5, Schultz 0 0-0 0, Byerly 2 2-6 6, Sopic 1 1-2 3, Peters 0 0-0 0, Moore 0 0-0 0, Zalno 0 0-0 0. Totals: 12 8-16 35.

Three-pointers: Ja. Ryan 2, Kovalick.

Score by Quarters

Harmony                                              4            8            10            11-33

Clearfield                                              7            9            9             10-35