Bark River-Harris’ Cassidi Stannard, left, drives to the basket against Forest Park’s Jenna Grabowski during the Class D regional championship game on Thursday in Kingsford. (Iron Mountain Daily News photo by Adam Niemi)

KINGSFORD — Forest Park and Bark River-Harris waged the kind of game that often has people saying, “It’s a shame somebody had to lose.”

The Skyline Central Conference rivals battled through two overtimes — that’s 40 minutes in total — on Thursday night before the Forest Park emerged with a 62-54 victory and the Class D regional championship.

“I’m overjoyed,” Trojans coach Jackie Giuliani said. “Our girls did a phenomenal job of staying focused and not letting emotion get the best of them.”

Forest Park (20-4) and Engadine (18-5), a 50-48 winner over Pickford in the eastern Upper Peninsula final, will meet in the quarterfinals Tuesday at Negaunee.

Bark River (16-8), which split a pair of regular season games with Forest Park, held the lead in the final moments of regulation and the first overtime.

“It was absolute chaos, just the way it should be in a game like that,” said Broncos coach Josh Eagle, who consoled his teary-eyed players as they left the gym. “That’s a heck of a team.

“Crystal Falls played their hearts out, just as we did. Our girls did everything they possibly could to have stayed in that game.”

Forest Park senior guard Abby Nylund, who finished with a game-high 18 points, started the second OT by driving the baseline for a basket and drawing a foul for a three-point play. That triggered an 8-0 shutout run over the final four minutes.

“When you have a girl that scores 1,000 (career) points you to have use her,” Giuliani said. “In that situation we needed to put the ball in her hands.”

Nylund, who topped 1,000 career points during last week’s district tourney, also led the Trojans with four steals and three assists.

“It was crazy,” said Nylund, a three-time regional champion with head coaches Giuliani and Jeff Syrjanen. “It was a great battle back and forth for both teams. Bark River is a very good team and give them props.

“But I think our girls knew they wanted it more.”

Hanna Logan added 14 points for the Trojans and Jenna Grabowski had 13 points with four steals. Becky Kolenda contributed nine points and a game-high 10 rebounds.

Paige Welch paced the Broncos with 17 points. Megan Robinette tacked on 13 points and Cassidi Stannard had 11.

Forest Park wanted to control the flow of the game, bottle up the 3-point shooters and keep tabs on pesky point guard Kelsey Boucher. Both teams hit five treys in the contest and Boucher was limited to five points.

Forest Park, concerned with Boucher taking over, did not use full-court pressure.

“Kelsey Boucher is a great guard and able to penetrate,” Giuliani said. “We purposely did not let her do that and I thought that was the difference in the game.

“By not pressing, we saved energy on defense and had a little more energy offensively, and did not let them get into their running game.”

Bark River took its first lead of the game with a Megan Robinette putback in the final seconds of the third quarter. The Broncos, for an eight-minute stretch of the second half, held the Trojans to one field goal and pulled ahead 45-41 with 3:31 left in regulation.

Forest Park owned a 47-45 advantage until Robinette forced overtime with two free throws with 41 seconds left. The Broncos also missed two free throws with 14 seconds to go.

In the first OT, free throws from Welch and Taylor Ray lifted the Broncos to a 54-52 lead with 31 seconds showing. Forest Park answered with free throws from Hannah Cross (19 seconds) and Grabowski (14 seconds) to set up the final extra session.