The second-seeded Harrisburg Bulldogs were forced to settle for fourth place in their own tournament on Saturday, falling 75-66 to nearby rival and top-seeded Hallsville in a brutal contest for third place.

The Bulldogs escaped the opening round with a nine-point win over seventh-seeded Marshall but were then upset by third-seeded Blair Oaks in the semifinals on Thursday. 

The top half of the bracket seedings proved way off, as the top two teams played for third place, and the third and fourth seeds battled for the title. Third-seeded Blair Oaks emerged as the champion with a 63-55 win over fourth-seeded Centralia.

The Bulldogs had their eyes on the prize Saturday. They opened the contest for third place with a dominant 17-11 fist-quarter performance. A back-and-forth opening four minutes saw Harrisburg emerge with a lead that topped out at five points. But moments later, Hallsville put together a 6-1 run to tie the game at 10 apiece. Harrisburg jumped back in front on a bucket by senior Wyatt Lind and a 3-pointer from junior Bryce Ott.

Both teams went to the line in the final 11 seconds. Keilin Dorman sank one of two chances. Ott finished off the scoring with two free throws to put his team in front by six points after one quarter.

That’s when things took a bad turn for the Bulldogs. Hallsville led off the second quarter with a 3-point shot just 14 seconds in. Seventy-five seconds later, the Indians took the lead on another triple, this time by Peyton Schleeter, to go up by two.

Nobody knew then that Hallsville would stay in front for the rest of the game. The Indians poured in 26 points and held Harrisburg to nine in the second quarter. Those eight minutes established the outcome.

“The second quarter did us in,” said Harrisburg coach Kyle Fisher. “When you’re playing a team as good as Hallsville, you can’t have a quarter like that. I thought we settled way too much, offensively. We hit some shots in the first quarter. And sometimes, when that happens, you settle a little too much. We just didn’t get the ball inside enough. And defensively, we just stopped rebounding. They killed us on the boards in the second quarter. I thought they got a lot more shots generally, and a lot more quality shots, in the second quarter.”

Trailing 37-26 at halftime, the Bulldogs were forced to

play catch-up for the rest of the game. They outscored Hallsville 19-15 in the third quarter to enter the final stanza down just seven points, 52-45. 

The Indians pushed their lead back up by double digits in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter. Harrisburg closed the disparity to five points on a play that could have proven pivotal. With 90 seconds to play, Hallsville’s second foul-out sent Rylee Robinson to the line. The sophomore hit both shots to bring his team within two possessions of the lead. 

However, the Indians made clutch baskets to maintain their multiple-possession advantage.

“We just never got that big bucket,” Fisher said. “It seemed like every time we got it to six, the ball didn’t get where it needed to go, or we had a bad turnover. And defensively, we would have a lapse.”

Harrisburg fouled to stop the clock in the final minutes, but Hallsville would always had an answer. A final basket by Gabe Jenkins with 24 seconds left clinched the win for the Indians, 75-66.

“I told them after the game that the stuff we need to fix is easily correctable,” Fisher said. “It’s a lot of defensive stuff. The offense is pretty much there. We just have to limit our turnovers a little bit.”

Harrisburg junior Trace Combs finished with a game-high 25 points, which Fisher said was not his best performance. A strong supporting cast included 17 points from Lind and 10 from Ott.

Robinson added seven points, and Carter Bremmer finished with five after a solid defensive performance.

“I thought Carter Bremer played really well today,” Fisher said. “I thought Rylee Robinson did some good things, too. And Bryce [Ott] had a couple of shots.”

Dorman led four Indians in double figures with 23 points. Isaac Stinson added 12, followed by Will Ewens with 11 and Schleeter with 10.

For Harrisburg, the arduous tournament concludes a stretch of more than a dozen games dating back to early December that included matchups with ranked teams, some of which are a class or two above.

“Thirteen of our last 14 games have been really high-level games,” Fisher said. “We haven’t really gotten much of a night off. We’ve had a really tough month and a half stretch of basketball.”

Fisher said the key to playing such an unsparing schedule is to come out of it stronger than when it began. The Bulldogs enter the final three weeks of the season with five games against Lewis & Clark opponents. The last three are against solid teams with winning records. Harrisburg’s penultimate game of the regular season will be at Salisbury. The 17-1 Panthers maintain the top ranking in the state as they strive to defend their Class 2 state title from a year ago.

“We just have to make sure that schedule didn’t break us. We have a few games coming up that are winnable,” Fisher said.

First up was a long trip to Knox County (1-12) on Tuesday after the Advertiser went to press. On Thursday, the Bulldogs return home for a conference game against Paris (4-11).