Marietta’s Owen Riley (14) goes up for a basket during a game against John Glenn Tuesday in New Concord. (Photo by Mike Morrison)

NEW CONCORD — The Marietta Tigers never trailed for the first 1,919 seconds of Tuesday night’s showdown on the road against the John Glenn Muskies.

Unfortunately for the Tigers they surrendered the lead in the final second as Stehl Bates’ long three-pointer beat the buzzer and gave the Muskies a thrilling 62-61 win.

Marietta led by as many as 19 points in the first half before watching the Muskies score 25 points in the final quarter to rally and deliver them the heart-breaking loss.

Ironically, the Muskies returned the favor to the Tigers after Marietta beat them on a Brayden Jones buzzer-beater last January at home.

“We just turned the ball over too much down the stretch and that was the difference in the game,” said MHS head coach Austin Gardner. “They have got shooters that can shoot the ball and they got hot at the right time and made shots and got one more point than we did.”

Marietta’s Zaiden Wittekind, left, is fouled during a game against John Glenn Tuesday in New Concord. (Photo by Mike Morrison)

John Glenn came into the game with only one blemish on their record — a loss to defending state champion Maysville — but the first half completely belonged to the Tigers.

Senior Zaiden Wittekind had a phenomenal first quarter for Marietta as his eight points and five rebounds helped the Tigers take an 18-7 lead at the end of one.

Wittekind knocked down a triple to open the second quarter and fellow senior Owen Riley followed with a two-pointer as the Tiger lead swelled to 16.

A three-pointer by Ben Stamm briefly slowed the Marietta momentum, but a bucket by Lucas Miller and back-to-back, Wittekind-assisted buckets by Trenton McVey increased the Tiger lead to 29-10 as they threatened to blow the Muskies right out of their own gym.

John Glenn managed to avoid the blow-out and chipped into the Tiger lead by going on a 9-4 run to close out the opening half to trim the MHS lead to 33-19 at the break.

Marietta shot 60 percent from the floor (15-25) in the first half despite making just 1-of-8 from behind the arc.

The Muskies were also 1-for-8 from long range, a number that would change dramatically in the second half.

It was almost inevitable that at some point in the second half the Muskies would find a way to make a run at the Tigers. They whittled six points off of the Tiger lead in the third period to head to the final quarter trailing by just eight.

Marietta suffered a tough blow when Riley caught an elbow to the face while diving for a loose ball after he cleanly blocked a Muskie shot.

The Tigers’ leading scorer had to leave the game for several minutes and be attended to on the MHS sidelines as he mirrored a prize fighter who had just taken a direct blow to the eye.

Riley would return to the game in the final period, but in his absence fellow senior Trey Hawkins took things into his own hands for the Tigers.

Hawkins drove strong to the bucket and scored three times in the opening three minutes of the fourth quarter as the Tigers managed to push their lead back to 11 with five minutes to play.

After the Muskies trimmed the lead back to eight, Riley’s inside basket off of an assist by Hawkins gave them a 55-45 lead with less than three minutes to play in the game.

John Glenn went into full court press mode and all of the sudden the Tigers began to struggle as they turned the ball over four times in the final quarter.

“You just can’t turn the ball over like we did — no team in high school basketball, college basketball, pro basketball has ever scored by turning the ball over,” said Gardner. “We’ve got to be stronger and tougher with the ball and on the reverse side we didn’t guard very well in the fourth quarter either.”

Those turnovers led to easy Muskie buckets by C.J Dolan and Bates to cut the lead to just five.

A pair of freebies by Dolan made it a one-possession game with 1:26 to play, but Riley answered on the other end off an assist by Miller.

Dolan quickly cut the lead back to three with a two-pointer, but Hawkins scored his seventh and eighth points of the fourth quarter to make it a 59-54 game with less than a minute to play.

Wittekind was fouled and made one-of-two before Bates canned a long three-pointer to once again close the lead to three with 17 seconds to play.

The turnover bug would bite the Tigers once again as Dolan stole the in-bounds pass and laid it up and in to make it a 60-59 game with just over 11 seconds to play.

The Tigers were forced to call a timeout after not being able to get the ball in. After the timeout, Wittekind caught the inbound pass and was quickly fouled.

Once again Wittekind made one-of-two at the charity stripe, leaving the Tigers with a two-point lead and setting the stage for the dramatic finish.

The Muskies got the ball into the hands of Dolan but Hawkins was able to knock it out of bounds with 2.8 seconds left on the clock.

John Glenn inbounded the ball to Dolan. Dolan quickly kicked it out to Bates, who got a shot off from right in front of the Muskie bench that found the bottom of the net as the buzzer sounded much to the delight of the large crowd on hand.

After the dismal first-half shooting performance, the Muskies made 7-of-11 from behind the arc in the second half.

The Tigers did a whole lot of things right, including shooting an incredible 65 percent (26-39) from the floor in the game, but just couldn’t find a way to stop the Muskies once the momentum shifted to their side.

Dolan led all scorers with 24 points while Bates and Ben Stamm finished with 16 and 15 points respectively for the Muskies, who improve to 20-1 on the season with the dramatic win.

Hawkins led the Tigers with 15 points while Riley and Wittekind added 14 and 13 points respectively.

Despite the loss, the atmosphere should serve as a great experience for Marietta as they prepare to host arch-rival Warren in Tuesday night’s tournament opener.

“I told the kids that 18-4 was good but we are 0-0 now and so is everyone else heading into the tournament,” said Gardner. “We know we have Warren Tuesday and we know that is going to be a battle and a fight. This one stings a little bit but hopefully this is the last one and we can make a little run in the tournament.”