Lights on, lights off, lights on...

Okarche didn’t need to shoot the lights out.

Mother Nature took care of that.

It was defense that was going to lead the Lady Warriors to an upset win over Amber- Pocasset.

That’s the message Okarche coach Brett Tahah delivered to her team again and again and again Tuesday night.

Not because her Lady Warriors weren’t receiving the message, but because damaging winds caused multiple outages during their Class A state basketball quarterfinal at State Fair Arena.

When the lights came back on - and stayed on just long enough - the Lady Warriors dominated the fourth quarter for a 50-42 victory over the No. 5 Lady Panthers.

“During the outages, we talked about staying focused on what we needed to do and to take the game one possession at a time,” Tahah said.

“I reminded them multiple times that defense is what would get us back in the game.”

She was right as Am-Po scored just four points over the final 11:20 as Okarche erased an 11-point deficit and then some - to close out the game.

The Lady Warriors were down 29-25 at the half, then Am-Po pushed its lead to six points and held Okarche scoreless for more than two minutes to start the second half.

It prompted an Okarche timeout at 5:41 of the third quarter.

The 30-second break turned into one that lasted 22 minutes as the lights in the arena first went partially out, then completely (some backup lights and the scoreboard stayed lit). The teams were given a few extra minutes to warm back up, but Okarche was still cold.

The Lady Panthers came out of the extended break on a 7-2 run to go up 38-27.

Am-Po was in the midst of a 14-2 run dating back to the second quarter.

The tables would soon turn.

Katie Parham finally broke the drought as she knocked down a 3-pointer at 2:44 of the third quarter.

It was Okarche’s first field goal in nearly eight minutes.

But the sophomore followed with another.

Parham later fed Harper White for a bucket and Okarche managed to close the third on a 9-2 run, but not before the teams endured another stoppage due to an outage.

It wasn’t done...whether it be the Okarche run or lights going out.

The Lady Warriors started the fourth with a 6-0 spurt as Parham gave her team a 42-40 lead with another trey with 6:20 to play.

Sadie Linn tied the game at 42-42 with 4:50 left. It remained there when the lights went out yet another time with 3:20 remaining in the game.

Once play resumed - with not all the lights yet working - the game belonged to Okarche.

The Lady Warriors scored the final eight points, which included going 6 of 9 from the free throw line in the final 1:33.

“That was one of our main keys in being able to close out the game,” Tahah said. “We didn’t do that the first time we played them.”

She was referencing a 37-36 loss to Am-Po at home on Jan. 31. In that game, Okarche was just 11 of 22 from the charity stripe.

This time around? 14 of 20.

But it was the defense that truly got it done.

After shooting nearly 50 percent in the first half, Am-Po was held to 28 percent (6 of 21) in the second.

The Lady Panthers had just one more field goal in the game after going up by 11 points in the third quarter and were held to two points in the fourth.

Am-Po’s Ainslee Mc-Comas and Gracen Hicks combined for 20 points in the first half.

Stopping them was crucial, Tahah said.

“Our main focus at halftime was to pick up our defensive intensity and to shut down those two,” Tahah said. “I felt like they were getting some easy buckets in that first half.”

McComas scored just three in the second half, finishing with 13, and Hicks scored two.

“The team did a great job of shutting those two down and it was a game changer,” Tahah said.

Sophomores Parham and Callie Cramer scored all 16 of Okarche’s points in the first quarter.

The second quarter saw White account for all nine of the team’s points.

White finished with 11 points and seven rebounds.

“That might have been her best game of the year,” Tahah said.

Cramer scored 12, including the go-ahead bucket that started Okarche’s final push after the last outage.

Parham, meanwhile, led all scorers with 21 points. She made five 3-pointers and also pulled in a gamehigh 10 rebounds and had a game-high five assists.

Okarche (23-9) has now won at least one game at state in its last 13 appearances.

The Lady Warriors were set to play No. 3 Cyril late Friday morning in the semifi nals.

Cyril and Quinton were supposed to play their quarterfi nal game after Okarche and Am-Po and got about halfway there.

However, more outages forced the postponement of the game until Wednesday afternoon at which time it resumed and Cyril won 31-25.