It's hard enough to beat a team once in a season.

Twice? That's even more difficult.The odds don't get much better the third time around.Jim Thorpe entered Tuesday night's Schuylkill League Division I contest against Lehighton with a chance to do just that. The Lady Olympians earned a 41-38 win against the Tribe at home in mid-December, and captured the championship at the Lady Indians Holiday Classic with a 47-44 triumph just two weeks later.On the verge of clinching a spot in the District 11 Class AAA playoffs, the Lady Indians had other plans, inching another step closer to a post season berth with a hard-fought 34-27 victory over Jim Thorpe."It's tough to play a team three times, let alone beat a team three times," Lehighton head coach Eric Gidney said. "We're two programs that know each other rather well as we also see them in the summer league now. So we see them a lot."The Lady Indians (10-6, 4-5) have also seen a great deal of Kayley Kovac this season. The sophomore scored 24 and 28 points, respectively, in the first two meetings.But Kovac, an All-State selection a year ago, was out of the lineup Tuesday night because of a stomach virus, forcing the Lady Olympians (11-6, 4-5) to adjust on the fly."To their credit, they decided that there weren't going to be any excuses and that they were going to come out and play as hard as they could and they did so," Gidney commented. "For us, we spent a couple of days scheming for her (Kovac) and with her not here it sort of changed things."While the dynamic changed, the narrative certainly didn't.The largest lead for either side in the first half was six points, which Lehighton held at 12-6 after Aubrey Blasiak, who scored a game-high 16 points, nailed a three-pointer early in the second quarter.Blasiak scored 11 of her points in the first half and helped the Lady Indians to a 19-14 advantage at the intermission."They played really good, tight defense on the floor, and they came out really far on the wing," said Blasiak. "So we knew that we either had to drive the ball or keep passing it and look for an open shot."The Lady Olympians responded in the third quarter, going on an 8-1 run that started on back-to-back baskets by Payton Kovac (eight points) and was capped by two free throws from Kaitlyn Ohl (six points) to give Jim Thorpe a 22-20 advantage, its first lead since going up 2-0 at the start of the game.But it was also the last lead of the contest for the Lady Olympians.After Holly Bollinger tied it at 22-22 with her only basket of the game, Blasiak put Lehighton back in front at 24-22 before the end of the third quarter.Jim Thorpe cut the deficit to one point twice in the fourth quarter at 26-25 and 28-27, both times on baskets by Jordan Waselus, who finished with seven points.But the Lady Indians were able to close it out by knocking down all six of their free throws in the final period, with Allie Rossino (five points) drilling the last two to set the final score.Jada Whiteman also finished with five points for Lehighton, which outscored Jim Thorpe 10-4 in the fourth quarter."We had finishing problems all night long and we really struggled to score tonight," said Lady Olympians' head coach Rob Kovac. "I thought we took very good shots and I loved the way our kids attacked all night. We did some really good things. Unfortunately, we just didn't finish."HOLDING PATTERN… For roughly a minute-and-a-half in the fourth quarter, Leighton held the ball at the top of the key. The stretch came after Waselus hit two free throws to make it 28-27 with 4:15 to play. The stretch ended when the Lady Olympians fouled and Skylynn Faust hit two free throws to make it 30-27.FOR THOSE PAST AND PRESENT… With Lehighton one win away from securing a berth in the postseason, Gidney wants to make sure it's not just the current players that are recognized for the program's turnaround. "We want to get into districts, but we want to do it for the girls on the last two years' teams as well," he said. "When I came in here three seasons ago, there was a long run of coaching changes and losing seasons. But we had a number of girls that stuck with it and I wish we would have gotten it for them. But if there's any kind of happy ending, we'd like to be able to do it for them."JIM THORPERichards 1-0-0-2, P. Kovac 3-2-8-8, Condly 0-0-0-0, Ohl 2-2-4-6, Cressman 0-0-1-0, Waselus 2-3-4-7, Lignore 2-0-4-4, Fasolino 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 10-7-21-27.LEHIGHTONRossino 1-2-2-5, Whiteman 2-0-0-5, Blasiak 4-7-8-16, Frey 0-0-0-0, Beck 1-0-0-2, Drofich 0-0-0-0, Faust 0-2-2-2, Buchinsky 1-0-0-2, Bollinger 1-0-0-2. TOTALS: 10-11-12-34.Jim Thorpe 6 8 9 4 - 27Lehighton 9 10 5 10 - 34Three-pointers: Jim Thorpe - None. Lehighton - Rossino 1, Whiteman 1, Blasiak 1.