It looked for quite some time that Lockport might grind its way to a quarterfinal victory over Curie on Tuesday night at the Pontiac Holiday Tournament.

Lockport led for large chunks of the first three quarters, never for very much but a lead nonetheless.

But the fourth quarter came and all the things that the Porters did before that promptly disappeared as Curie claimed a 52-43 victory.

The loss dropped Lockport (9-3) into the tournament’s fifth-place bracket where it will square off against Peoria Manual at 11 a.m. Wednesday.

“I don’t know if I’m hard on the guys or not, but, you know I look out there and we have three juniors and a sophomore out there and it shows sometimes,” Lockport coach Dave Wilson said. “And the positive aspect of that is that they have room to improve. ... But the downside is that when we have an opportunity to capture the moment, we’re just not ready yet.”

The Porters certainly looked ready, giving the tournament’s second seed all they wanted over the first three quarters, particularly in the second quarter where they held Curie (10-0) to just four points.

But in doing that, they only scored nine themselves missing a golden opportunity to separate themselves from a Curie team that was struggling mightily behind the arc, where it finished 2 for 17 in the game, as well as struggling to generate offense by any means it could think of.

As such, Lockport went into the second half with a rather scant 20-16 lead.

Curie promptly scored the first five points of the second half to take its first lead since late in the first quarter and the two teams proceeded to trade the lead back and forth before Lockport steadied itself at the end of the third quarter with a 11-4 run.

That left the Porters with a 37-31 lead heading into the fourth quarter, and then Lockport’s offensive spigot was completely shut off and its defense showed signs of wilting.

Curie then rattled off the first 14 points of the fourth quarter before Lockport finally ended its offensive drought with a 3-pointer from Nedas Venckus, who led the Porters with 16 points.

Six minutes of game time passed during the drought and although Nojus Venckus (11 points) would knock down another 3-pointer 41 seconds later, those two baskets would be the only six points Lockport would score in the final quarter.

Curie, meanwhile, would knock down seven of its eight free throws in the final two minutes to secure its place in the semifinal where it will face Benet. Justin Oliver, who hit five of those free throws, paced the Condors with 18 points.

“It was a lack of execution,” Wilson said of the fourth quarter letdown. “They picked it up defensively in the half court and little things bothered us. Denials bothered us. Switching bothered us and then we stacked bad possession after bad possession.

“For the most part we’ve been able to survive on talent, and then in crunch time, fundamentals need to be supreme. And right there and right now, we’re not. We are fundamentally ignorant. Little things are little things until they add up, then they become big things.”