MORRISTOWN — Bellaire let one slip away Monday night and Union Local gladly accepted it.

With the score deadlocked at 37 with 3.5 seconds left in regulation, the Big Reds were inbounding the ball under the Jets basket as overtime seemed a sure-fire thing. However, the pass trickled through a Bellaire player’s legs right to Union Local’s Ella Pietranton who was in a defensive stance. The senior drove to the basket and made a shot while being fouled. Her ensuing free throw gave the hosts an improbable 40-37 victory over the stunned Big Reds (1-1) inside ‘The Hangar’ on the Union Local campus.

“The girl inbounded the ball and it went through her teammates legs. I just grabbed it and prayed for the best when I shot it,” Pietranton said of her game-winner. “I was down. I wasn’t feeling myself, but that sure made me feel better.”

The homestanding Jets (3-0) trailed 37-29 after a pair of free throws by the Big Reds’ Zara Harveth with 7:36 left in the fourth quarter, but the turnover-plagued visitors wouldn’t score again as they turned the ball over 11 times in the fourth quarter after only having seven through three quarters.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Bellaire head coach John Farrier admitted. “It wasn’t like they (Union Local) was putting a lot of heat on us with their press, we just made some poor decisions and poor passes. We tried to force things when we were winning. We played like we were down seven instead of being up by seven.

“All of us associated with the program, collectively, have to take some of the blame for the collapse,” he said. “As coaches we need to coach a batter game and, as players, we have to play a better game.

“Give Union Local credit though. They played until the end.”

Delaney Butler made the back-end of a two-shot foul to kick-start the rally. Pietranton then buried a three from the right wing to make it 37-33.

She would connect on the front-end of a two-shot opportunity before Laken Vinskovich netted the second of two foul shots for a 37-35 deficit with 3:17 remaining. An inside move by Vinskovich with 1:30 showing pulled the Jets even and set the stage for the late-game dramatics.

“It was a rock fight the whole night. It wasn’t pretty and we didn’t think it was going to be pretty,” Tolzda said. “We were down six and threw in our house 1-2-2 press and I think they just went bananas for a little bit. I don’t know if they were playing not to lose, but they were throwing the ball right to us.

Finally, we found a way to win the game right at the end. I was sure we were going to overtime.

“The ball ended up in Ella’s hands and she drove to the basket, got fouled and made the foul shot,” Tolzda recalled. “When the smoke had cleared, the Jets had won.”

Vinskovich posted a double-double with 20 points and 10 rebounds – both game high’s. Fifteen of those markers came in the first half, though.

“Laken was the center of our offense and she came through with a big steal there late in the game,” Tolzda said of his 6-1 sophomore.

“That was a really big Buckeye 8 win,” Tolzda explained. “This win could decide who plays in the championship game on our side. That game had some extra meaning to it.”

Tolzda was proud of the way his team played on the defensive end of the court.

“Our defense was solid once again. Bellaire has three four-year starters and Myah Martin held one of them scoreless,” he noted. “I think she (O’Grady) is capable of scoring 15 or so.”

Pietranton added 11 points in support of Vinskovich. Ameera Saunders and Butler had five rebounds each.

Harveth led Bellaire with 15 points, two more than Eliana Mason. Harveth also grabbed six rebounds.

Union Local led 31-28 off the glass and only turned the ball over 10 times, with six of those coming in the first quarter. Bellaire finished with 18 turnovers.

Bellaire travels north on Ohio 7 to Steubenville on Wednesday, while Union Local heads west on I-70 Thursday to battle Cambridge.