ROYAL PALM BEACH – For three quarters, it looked like Lake Worth High's boys basketball team was going to run Wellington right out of the gym Saturday night.

For one quarter, it looked like the Wolverines were going to pull off the comeback of the year.

Trailing by 19 entering the fourth quarter, Wellington put together a furious rally to cut the deficit to one. After calling a timeout with 12.5 seconds remaining to set up a final play, the Wolverines threw an errant pass that went out of bounds, and the Trojans escaped with a 60-57 victory in the District 8-7A championship game at Royal Palm Beach High School.

"We made it interesting at the end," Lake Worth coach Frank Baxley said. "We tried to make it good for the fans and give them their money's worth, and we did a great job of that."

It was the third straight year the teams met for the district title, with the Trojans winning the last two. As the top-seeded team in the district and the fourth-ranked team in Region 2-7A entering the week, Lake Worth (17-9) is likely to host a regional quarterfinal Thursday night.

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The second-seeded Wolverines (22-5), who saw their nine-game winning streak snapped,  expect to receive a wild-card regional bid.

Wellington was outscored in each of the first three quarters and faced a 50-31 deficit going into the fourth quarter. But that's when things started to swing in the other direction.

"We had to press and our press was very good to us tonight," coach Matt Colin said. "We got after them in that fourth quarter. We started trapping them all over the place, we got a lot of deflections, and it really picked up our energy."

The Wolverines ran off the first 11 points of the quarter. Toney Collins and Jeremy Tovar converted three-point plays (the old-fashioned kind), and when Elyjah Freeman stole the ball and raced downcourt for a dunk, Baxley called a timeout.

Wellington continued to chip away, cutting the deficit to 54-48 on another steal-and-dunk by Freeman with 2:20 remaining. Later, the Wolverines ran off six straight points, capped by a goaltending call on a layup by Reggie Reinhardt, to make it 58-56 with 31.9 seconds left.

Freeman made one of two free throws to cut the deficit to one, and the Trojans left the door open by missing four straight free throws. That's when Wellington set up the final play.

"We had the ball in Reggie's hands," Colin said of Reinhardt, his senior floor leader. "The read was basically the layup or the three in the corner -- one of those was going to be open. The three in the corner was open, but it was a tough pass.

"Those things happen. We've just got to make the play next time."

Baxley said Lake Worth's near-meltdown was simple to explain.

"There are two things you can't do in that situation," he said. "You can't miss free throws and you can't turn the ball over. We did both and they got back into the game."

Fortunately for the Trojans, they had built enough of a cushion to withstand the Wolverines' 26-10 fourth-quarter blitz. During one especially dominant stretch in the second quarter, Lake Worth went on a 15-4 run and held Wellington without a field goal.

"I credit their defense and their length," Colin said. "They really made it tough for us to score around the rim, and we just weren't hitting shots. I think we started to press a little bit, and I tried to stress to the guys, 'Let's run our offense, let's get them moving by swinging the ball.'"

Hedrens Bartelus led the Trojans with 18 points, Jerome Innocent scored 15, and Joseph Rogers and Jalique Smith each added nine. Freeman led the Wolverines with 18 points (14 in the second half), Tovar scored 15 and Reinhardt had 14.

Lake Worth avenged a 59-54 loss to Wellington in January, but Baxley pointed out that the Trojans were missing three injured starters in that game.

"I knew once we got our guys back, it would be a different ball game for us," he said. "We're a tough matchup for any team when we're playing at full strength. We just had to get healthy, and when we're healthy that's how we can look."

Colin, meanwhile, was heartened by his team's near-miracle.

"It's encouraging that our guys showed so much resiliency and fight to come back," he said. "They didn't fold and that makes me very proud. ... I feel like there's a lot we learned tonight, a lot of things we can correct.

"If we can incorporate what we've been doing (during the nine-game winning streak) with what happened tonight, we've got a shot to make a run in the regionals. I like our chances."

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Lake Worth basketball withstands Wellington comeback to win district title