BUCYRUS — It was senior night at Bucyrus and Redmen coach Justin Mattix wanted to send his five seniors out with a victory in their last game in Alex Kish Memorial Gymnasium.

After a slow start dug them a hole, the Redmen fought back against visiting Crestline and finally forced overtime.

But two free throws by the Bulldogs’ Max Anatra with five seconds left in the extra period gave Crestline a 59-58 win in the regular-season finale for both teams.

“It’s disappointing. I think it was a good game, it was a close game,” Mattix said. “It’s really fun to play in these games but it makes it a lot harder to lose.”

Early on, the Bulldogs’ Kaden Ronk was a one-man wrecking crew. Ronk hit two 3-point shots in the first period and three more in the second en route to 21 first-half points, as Crestline (8-14) built a 32-20 lead by halftime.

Bucyrus, on the other hand, struggled to shoot the ball in the first half, hitting just eight of 28 shots from the field.

“We go eight, 12, 17, 21 — that’s how many we scored in each quarter,” Mattix said. “In the second half, we did a really good job of scoring, we did a really good job of getting on runs. But it doesn’t matter if you have that one quarter. We had that one quarter (Friday) against Carey and we had that one quarter tonight.”

Harley Robinson-Koge scored nine of his 14 points in the third quarter as the Redmen cut their deficit at intermission in half to trail just 43-37 entering the fourth period.

Bucyrus chipped away and finally got its first lead since 1-0 to start the game when Dylan Goff hit a basket with 1:15 left in regulation to put the Redmen up 51-49.

Anatra answered Goff with a shot at 1:02 to knot it at 51-51. But both teams turned the ball over in the last minute and neither even got a potential game-winning shot off.

In overtime, Crestline led 57-55 on a basket by Ty Clark with one minute left. However, Goff drilled a 3 from the right corner to give the Redmen a 58-57 lead with 50 second left.

A turnover and a missed free throw by Bucyrus gave the Bulldogs the ball, setting the stage for Anatra being fouled and hitting the clutch free throws for the win.

“We had it in our hands and we just let it go,” Mattix said. “We’re up one, we miss a free throw, we turn it over and then we foul. We don’t even force the kid to hit a tough shot. We foul him.”

Ronk finished with a game-high 26 points to lead Crestline and Clark added 19 points and 12 rebounds.

Jaylen Zehner dropped in 14 for the Redmen to match Robinson-Koge and Kyle Hamm ended with 13 points and 11 boards.

Robinson-Koge, Goff, Hamm, Kenton Lutz and Zane Seybert played their last game at Kish Gymnasium.

“This wasn’t the end we had for these guys,” Mattix said. “I’m still really proud of them, proud of the was they fought back, proud of what they’ve done in their time here.”

The Redmen have at least one more game to play, that being their Division III sectional semifinal against Fostoria at Monroeville on Tuesday at 8 p.m.

“Things got in the way and there were too many distractions this season,” Mattix said. “I’m really proud of these five seniors, they kept their heads out of trouble. They did what was right and made the right decisions for 22 games. Hopefully, we can overcome that going forward.

“We’ve still got a tournament game,” Mattix added. “We wish we had some momentum going in. We didn’t get this one, but I still believe we can get some momentum from it and hope we can get one (win).”

Crestline will enter the post season in the Division IV sectional at Galion on Tuesday versus Monroeville.

Crestline also won the junior varsity game in overtime, 54-52. Jaden Stewart and Conner Lusk had 13 points each to lead the Bulldogs. Tod Spurlock had a game-high 16 points for Bucyrus and Gabe Higginbotham added 14.

Box score

Crestline    15    17     11      8      8 — 59

Bucyrus        8    12     17    14     7 — 58

Crestline: (8-14): Shots 23-57; 3-pt. shots 7-15 (Kaden Ronk 6, Trevor Phillips); Free throws 6-15; Rebounds 41 (Ty Clark 12); Turnovers 18. Scoring: Kaden Ronk 10 0 26, Max Anatra 2 3 7, Trevor Phillips 1 0 3, Ty Clark 8 3 19, Ethan Clark 1 0 2, Spencer Harley 1 0 2.

Bucyrus (3-19): Shots 25-66; 3-pt. shots 2-15 (Harley Robinson-Koge, Dylan Goff); Free throws 6-9; Rebounds 40 (Kyle Hamm 11); Turnovers 16. Scoring: Zane Seybert 0 0 0, Jaylen Zehner 6 2 14, Kenton Lutz 4 0 8, Mike Wise 1 0 2, Harley Robinson-Koge 5 3 14, Dylan Goff 3 0 7, Kyle Hamm 6 1 13.

JV: Crestline 54-52 (OT).