The St. Bede girls basketball team grabbed a double-digit lead in the opening five minutes of Monday’s semifinal of the Tri-County Conference Tournament against host Dwight.

The No. 2-seeded Trojans then fought back and held a two-point advantage with four minutes to play before the No. 3-seeded Bruins used a game-changing 13-0 run to eventually record a 57-46 victory.

Two-time defending champion St. Bede (12-9) advances to Thursday’s 8 p.m. championship game against No. 4-seeded Midland, which defeated top-seed Roanoke-Benson 43-36 in the night’s opening semifinal. Dwight (16-6) will take on the Rockets in the third-place contest at 6:30 p.m.

“We came out playing really well the opening five minutes of the game,” St. Bede coach Tom Ptak said, his squad having fallen to Dwight by 12 10 days ago. “But from there they really outhustled us for much of the game. They were getting every loose ball and just playing scrappy. Then we had a couple calls not go our way and instead of just letting it go and moving on, we held on to that frustration. We talked at halftime about how Dwight wanted to win this game more than we did.”

Trailing by two with just over three minutes to play, a layup and a trio of free throws by Lili McClain, a 3-pointer by Hannah Heiberger and five straight points by Savannah Bray over the next two minutes turned the deficit into a 51-40 lead.

Lili McClain led St. Bede with a game-high 23 points, including 13 of 19 from the charity stripe, four rebounds, three assists and four steals. Ava Balestri finished with 14 points and six rebounds, while Bray registered nine points and a game-best 19 rebounds. Heiberger chipped in six points and seven rebounds.

“They were up two with about three minutes to go and all of a sudden over the next minute we made a couple of key defensive plays and knocked down a couple shots to pull back ahead again,” Ptak said. “The girls put together a huge swing in the time of the game when we really needed to make something happen.

“We talked about stepping up in the timeout before the fourth quarter. They all shook their heads yes, and then went out there and did it. This was a nice win for us and we’re excited to see what we can do Thursday.”

After falling behind 17-2 in the opening five minutes, the Trojans chipped away, holding the Bruins to just 12 points over the next 19 minutes. Meanwhile, Olivia Buck was netting 15 of her team-high 17 points and Mikayla Chambers (eight rebounds) nine of her 11 points to hold a 32-30 lead entering the final period.

Back-to-back triples by Buck put Dwight ahead 40-38 before the Bruins sudden burst.

St. Bede finished 17 of 39 (44%) shooting from the field, 17 of 29 from the line and held a 44-31 edge in rebounding.

Dwight was 13 of 57 (23%) from the floor and won the turnover battle 16-22.

“We dug a huge hole at the start and had to use a ton of energy to get back in it,” Dwight coach Max Sulzberger said. “While we didn’t come out and play well at the start credit St. Bede for starting the game by knocking down shots and beating our press for layups. I feel like just the break between the first and second quarters was enough for our girls to kind of settle down a little and we were back on track after that.

“Late in the game we had tired legs and were in some foul trouble, which was tough. We had the lead there with four minutes or so to go and then they just went on a run that we couldn’t get slowed down. Then we were forced to foul, and they did a good job of knocking down free throws to keep us chasing.”