MARIETTA — When the Hiland Hawks girls basketball team was bumped up to Division III for the 2017-18 season after winning the Division IV state championship a year ago, just about everyone sensed that somewhere “down the road,” there would be a crucial postseason collision with the much-ballyhooed Columbus Africentric Nubians.

To get ready for just such a matchup, Hawks veteran head coach Dave Schlabach beefed up the regular-season schedule that included a half dozen Division. I opponents. Literally hundreds upon hundreds of hours went into preparing for the towering squad that even Schlabach had touted as the best team in the state.

That “down-the-road” encounter came Saturday at Marietta College in the Division III Region 11 championship, with a berth in the state Final Four on the line.

The showdown between the two five-time state champs proved to be the battle everyone thought it would be, with Africentric pulling out a numbing 61-60 victory in overtime, ending Hiland’s 13-game winning streak and hopes of yet another trip to Columbus.

“Their offensive rebounds killed us,” said Schlabach. “We had ’em where we wanted them with a nice lead late. But no lead is safe with those guys.”

In general, Africentric’s overall size was just too much for the Hawks to handle down the stretch. The Nubians capitalized on second and third chances and ultimately outrebounded Hiland 41-32. The victors shot 26 of 64 from the floor (41 percent) while Hiland ended up 20 of 57 (38 percent).

“We did a really good job and had just a couple of turnovers at inopportune moments,” Schlabach said. “We couldn’t finish the free throws off. Nothing against our kids. I thought we did about everything we could possibly do.”

Nubians head coach William McKinney said Saturday’s win was “clearly” the toughest of all of his team’s victories this season.

“When we play Hiland, it’s always going to boil down to who’s got the ball at the end of the game,” McKinney said. “It’s always gonna be a seesaw game. There’s gonna be a lot of lead changes. It’s just gonna be epic, a classic.

“When Hiland is involved, you face one of the classiest programs and one of the hardest-working programs with a Hall of Fame coach,” McKinney added. “It doesn’t get much better than this.”

There were 18 lead changes. The Nubians’ biggest edge was five at 11-6 with 3:40 to go in the opening period. The Hawks’ biggest lead was seven at 54-47 with 1:47 left in regulation.

Africentric, however, closed out the fourth period with a 9-2 run to knot the board at 56-56 when 5-foot-11 freshman Maliyah Johnson rebounded a miss by six-foot junior Jordan Horston and put the ball back in with 18.5 seconds to go in regulation.

After calling a pair of timeouts – the first one needed after being unable to in-bound the ball against the Nubians’ press — Hiland had an opportunity to win. Senior Morgan McMillen did finally throw it in to junior Tiffany Weaver, who got it back to McMillen, who passed to senior Kennedy Schlabach.

Schlabach maneuvered through traffic in the middle of the floor and went hard to the basket, where she was knocked to the court attempting a last-second shot. With no foul whistled, the nail-biting overtime ensued.

One of the problems for Hiland (23-5) was that McMillen, in the process of trying to take a charge from the Nubians’ Horston, had picked up her fourth foul with 4:02 still to play in the third quarter. She had to sit out the remainder of the third and nearly three minutes of the fourth before returning to action.

In the overtime, the Nubians (25-3) struck first on an inside deuce by sophomore Alexia Smith.

With 2:17 left in overtime, after what Hiland thought was a Nubian traveling violation, McMilllen was called for a blocking foul – her fifth of the game. But Tierra Cook missed both ensuing free throws, and it was still a two-point game at 58-56.

After a long-range Hiland misfire, Brynn Mullet of the Hawks came up with a steal with 1:27 to go and Kennedy sank the first of a one-and-one opportunity to pull the Hawks to within one at 58-57.

Africentric missed four free throws, but took a 60-57 lead on an offensive rebound and stick-back by sophomore Nyam Thornton with 51 ticks remaining.

With the clock at :24, Schlabach bravely swished a 3-ball from the right corner to tie it at 60.

The deciding point came with just 1.4 seconds left as Thornton made the first of two charity tosses. Hiland freshman Zoe Miller rebounded the miss and the Hawks immediately called timeout to try to draw up a desperation attempt. Miller’s long pass up-court, however, was intercepted by Iyanna Hairston to seal the Nubians’ win.

Thornton, a 5-9 sophomore guard, paced Africentric with 19 points. Hairston added 13, Horston 12 and Smith 10. Hairston had 12 rebounds – eight on the offensive end — and Horston collected 10 rebounds.

Weaver was Hiland’s high-point scorer with 15 points. Freshman Morgan Yoder added 11 and Schlabach finished with 10. Miller and Weaver hauled in nine and seven rebounds respectively.

McMillen, one of three seniors on the Hiland roster that included five freshmen, fought back tears along with her teammates. She said her team was not intimidated by Africentric after knocking off the Nubians in last year’s Classic in the Country showcase in Berlin.

“I would play (Africentric) again in a heartbeat,” McMillen said. “I’m so proud of my team. I wouldn’t want to play with any other girls.”