It may not be one of the most glamorous aspects of basketball, but it definitely is one of the most important.

And on Tuesday night, it was one of the main reasons Blue Mountain knocked off Lehighton in the opening round of the District 11 Class AAA playoffs.Stressing and executing the fundamental of "boxing out," the ninth-seeded Eagles earned a 52-48 victory and ended the Indians' season."Before every game we go over what the other team is going to do and what we need to do," said Blue Mountain head coach Dustin Werdt. "Before we go out on the floor we write down the key to the game. Every time we played (Lehighton) we said defend the three was No. 1."Tonight I didn't put defend the three first ... It was box out. And I truly believe that is the reason we won the game."The Eagles, hurt by rebounding often during the second half of the season which included a 26-point defeat to Lehighton two and a half weeks ago, only allowed six offensive boards and five points off those rebounds.Connor Kerstetter especially epitomized Blue Mountain's focus on the boards. Matched up against the Tribe's Nick Chambers, who collected 11 points and 15 rebounds in the team's previous meeting, the sophomore snatched 10 defensive caroms and limited Chambers to just one point and six boards."Connor did a great job of neutralizing Chambers," said Werdt, whose team finished with a 35-24 rebounding edge. "When we came here before, Chambers just dominated the game. We talk about Lehighton being a great three-point shooting team but a lot of that had to do with Chambers working inside-out, getting rebounds and kicking the ball back out."Speaking of threes, Tyler Crum's triple early in the fourth quarter helped spark a 14-5 Indian run that gave the hosts a 46-40 lead.But while eighth-seeded Lehighton went just 1-of-5 from the floor and missed two free throws down the stretch, the Eagles hit their final four shots from the field. They also converted on four foul shots to close the game on a 12-2 spurt."Toward the end of the game we stopped playing defense," said Indian mentor Rich Oertner, whose team finished the season with a 14-9 record. "They got two 'and one' plays and it was just a matter of playing some defense. We gave them baseline and they scored. Defense has been one of our problems all year, there's no doubt about it."Blue Mountain played decent defense but it was probably one of our poorest shooting nights. But honestly, we didn't shoot the ball real well because we were out of shape. We really didn't work as hard as we should have at practice ... It's very frustrating. We had a lot more talent but they had the desire. I guess that's what it comes down to."While Lehighton finished 18-of-47 from the floor (38.3 percent) and 6-of-14 (42.9 percent) from the foul line, it was never out of the game. In fact, the two teams battled back-and-forth throughout the contest.In all, the game featured three ties and 14 lead changes. And the largest lead was the six-point advantage the Indians had midway through the final frame."We were in the game but we weren't playing well," said Oertner. "Our 1-3-1 trap did a pretty good job. They turned the ball over quite a bit (25 times), but we couldn't finish. We had a couple bad plays down the stretch, and took some bad shots. We had five games decided by five points or less this year and we lost them all."When you win 14 games you should be happy but it's sad to go out this way."Blue Mountain's Brayden Lewis finished with a team-high 14 points, including six during his team's final 12-2 run. Kerstetter, Mark Chelius and Aaron Albertini all contributed nine points. The Eagles (12-11) will face top-seeded Pottsville in the quarterfinals on Friday.For the Indians, seniors Tyler Crum and Jordan Knappenberger each had 14 points in their final game. Classmate Tom Ruzicka chipped in with seven.BLUE MOUNTAINStramara 2-1-4-6, Kerstetter 2-5-5-9, Barton 0-0-0-0, Welsh 1-0-0-3, Lewis 6-2-3-14, Chelius 3-2-2-9, Albertini 4-1-1-9, Zerbe 0-0-0-0, Biever 1-0-1-2. TOTALS: 19-11-16-52.LEHIGHTONRuzicka 3-0-2-7, Crum 6-0-1-14, Zwetolitz 1-0-0-3, Williams 2-0-0-4, Chambers 0-1-5-1, Knappenberger 5-3-3-14, Greene 1-2-3-5. TOTALS: 18-6-14-48.Blue Mountain 10 11 14 17 - 52Lehighton 12 11 9 16 - 48Three-pointers: Blue Mountain - Stramara 1, Welsh 1, Chelius 1; Lehighton - Crum 2, Ruzicka 1, Zwetolitz 1, Knappenberger 1, Greene 1.