That’s when the Lady Rangers and veteran coach Carol Cecere managed to finally pull away with back-to-back 3-pointers by Paxtyn Pcola and Aivah Maul that led to a 65-51 victory at Mount Aloysius College.

“Coming into the playoffs as the No. 5 seed, a lot of teams looked down upon us and didn’t think we were capable of much,” Penn Cambria senior Ava Saleme said. “We had two humongous games against Tyrone and Westmont to get here, and being a senior — that means a lot just getting here. Yeah, we lost, but there was nothing better to experience this with my team. We’ll regroup and give it our all at states.”

The Lady Panthers will play at the WPIAL’s third-place finisher on Saturday, March 8 while Forest Hills will host the fourth-place WPIAL team that same day.

Pcola’s 3-pointer, her only basket of the game, to start the fourth quarter, started a 12-2 run that basically put the game out of reach.

“That was backbreaking,” Penn Cambria coach Josh Himmer said. “We had a lot of momentum going into the fourth quarter. We came back from down eight or nine and got it to two, and they started off with two 3-pointers off two turnovers from us. That’s what really good teams do. Carol does a really good job. She has 504 wins for a reason. She’s an unbelievable coach, and those girls buy into what she does.”

Penn Cambria struggled against the Forest Hills press and turned the ball over 28 times. Meanwhile, the Lady Rangers were cashing in a lot of free points at the free-throw line and finished 20-for-20 on the night — something Cecere hasn’t been used to seeing this season.

“Absolutely not,” Cecere said. “It’s one of those things that becomes comic relief — the foul shooting. We have struggled this year. Tonight it was clutch, because other things didn’t go our way sometimes, so it was good the foul shots went in.”

The free throws kept Forest Hills in it when Penn Cambria got hot early, and then Maul started to take control in the second half. She finished with a team-high 18 points, and Eva Myers added 16 points. Anna Spangler and Morgan Gdula each scored 11 for the Lady Rangers, who got off to an uncharacteristic start for their storied program this season.

“Earlier in the year, we were 5-6 at one point,” Cecere said. “We play a tough schedule, and we added on tough games against tough teams. We just kept telling the girls to keep grinding and keep it together. They believed in themselves.”

That belief led to Forest Hills’ 12th District 6 title and second straight. The Lady Rangers won the 3A crown last year.

“We’re really young,” Himmer said. “We have three seniors and 10 freshmen. I told them after the game that we would learn from this. We fought our tails off to get here. I don’t want to take anything away from these girls. It was an accomplishment to get here to this game. We’ll get better from this.”

Forest Hills briefly took an 11-point lead in the third quarter before Penn Cambria fought back to make it 44-42 with eight minutes to play.

“In the third quarter, we were getting a little tight, worried about shooting and missing,” Cecere said. “We had a whole quarter and five minutes to go, and we were trying to take 30 seconds off each possession. We started hesitating to take shots, but then to come out and hit two big shots to start the fourth was clutch, because that team is good. We were worried about that team.”

Rachel Fisher led Penn Cambria with 11 points. Avery Lemaster added nine points, and Saleme had eight. The Lady Panthers had lost, 79-53, in the regular season to Forest Hills but looked to be their equal for most of Monday’s game.

“It goes back to our mentality,” Himmer said. “We have real tough girls. They bought into our game plan. It was a one-score game going into the fourth quarter. We have mentally tough girls.”

PENN CAMBRIA (51): Ronan 1 2-5 4, McCoy 2 1-2 6, Ave. Lemaster 3 3-4 9, Hite 2 0-0 5, Saleme 3 0-0 8, Fisher 5 0-0 11, Andersen 0 2-2 2, Ava. Lemaster 2 0-0 4, McConnell 1 0-1 2. Totals — 19 8-14 51.

FOREST HILLS (65): Spangler 4 2-2 11, Gdula 3 4-4 11, Maul 6 4-4 18, Myers 4 8-8 16, Pcola 1 0-0 3, Carpenter 1 2-2 4, Lashinsky 0 0-0 0, Faith 0 0-0 0, Brown 0 0-0 0, Baumgardner 1 0-0 2. Totals — 20 20-20 65.

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Penn Cambria 17 7 18 9 — 51

Forest Hills 11 18 15 21 — 65

3-point goals: Penn Cambria 5 (Saleme 2, McCoy, Hite, Fisher); Forest Hills 5 (Maul 2, Gdula, Spangler, Pcola).

Records: Penn Cambria (12-11); Forest Hills (16-8).

Officials: Vicki Markiewicz, George Figura, Jordan Forster.