Fortunately for Red Mountain, its overtime session against Horizon on Thursday night was a carbon copy of the game's first quarter.

The No. 13 Mountain Lions saw a 19-point, first-half lead dwindle to nothing at the buzzer of regulation, but regrouped to record an 83-76 victory over the visiting Huskies in the first round of the Division I state boys basketball tournament.

Red Mountain (17-10) survives to a second-round date Saturday (Feb. 21) at No. 4 St. Mary's at 7 p.m. Horizon, the No. 20 seed finished the year 13-13 after a frantic second-half run fell short. Red Mountain and St. Mary's did not play one another this season.

Horizon never led and began down 11-0. The Huskies biggest deficit was 32-13 with 2:42 left in the second period and was 37-19 at the break. A 1-for-11 shooting effort in the first quarter was a huge part of the deficit as was 5-for-27 for the first two quarters. Meanwhile, Red Mountain sank eight threes in the first half and shot 53 percent from the field. The threes came from Desmond Ethridge, Kapono Enos, Abe Mercado and Braxton Robinson.

Horizon, however, began making a few more shots in the second half and Red Mountain began playing Horizon's game. It came down to the final 4.6 seconds with Red Mountain leading 66-63 and Horizon having a final possession. Senior guard Brandon Burke, who scored 20 of his team-high 21 points, swished a three from the left corner that was well defended. It was enough to stun the hosts into submission, but they responded decisively in the overtime stanza.

A free throw by Ethridge and layup by Enos put Red Mountain in front to stay, 69-66, in the first minute of overtime. A turnoer and six consecutive misses from the field by Horizon soon found the Huskies down 75-66 with 1:18 left. Horizon finally scored with 1:07 left in OT, but transition baskets -- four in a row and five in the period -- spelled doom for Horizon.

"They're a different team," Red Mountain coach Todd Fazio said. "We knew at halftime it was going to be different. It wasn't going to continue the way it had. We knew it, and didn't handle it well in the second half. We got into their game."

Fazio was disappointed having to go the extra four minutes, but to extend the season at this point, well, he'l take it.

"It shouldn't have gone to overtime," Fazio said. "We had situations where a couple passes rather than dribbling through traffic was the way to go. We had a few games go overtime this year. That helped prepare us for this one. We got some easy baskets in overtime we needed."

Red Mountain received a team-high 21 points from Enos, 20 from Ethridge and 19 from Mercado. They combined for nine of the Mountain Lions 11 threes. After Burke's 21 points for Horizon, teammates Austin Deweerdt had 19 and Joey Cipolletti had 15.