Heartland Christian's Johnny Meyer goes to the basket against Fairport Harding's Brady Lawson andAbraham Castellano (3) in district semifinal play Wednesday.

COLUMBIANA — The Heartland Christian boys basketball team is getting a second chance at a district title.

The fourth-seeded Lions rallied from a nine-point deficit in the fourth quarter and scored the last five points to beat seventh-seeded Fairport Harding, 69-66, in a Division IV district semifinal Wednesday.

Isaiah Matthews led the Lions with 26 points, including six three-pointers. Collin Kallaher and Corban Suita each scored 14 points. Brody Conaway added 11 points.

Heartland won for 12th time in 13 games to improve to 18-5. The Lions will play in the district final for the second year in a row, taking on third-seeded Jeromesville Hillsdale at 7 p.m. Saturday at Smithville High School. Hillsdale beat 11th-seeded Ashtabula St. John, 72-56, Wednesday.

Fairport Harding had its 10-game winning streak snapped and finished at 18-6.

The Skippers scored 27 points in the second quarter and 22 in third quarter –including eight points in the final 1:09 — to take a 60-51 heading into the fourth quarter.

Fairport Harding led 64-58 with 3:15 to play. A Shane Greenwood basket gave the Skippers a 66-64 lead with 1:44 left in the game. They were held scoreless the rest of the way.

Seutia split a pair of free throws to cut the deficit to 66-65 at the 1:31 mark. After the Skioppers missed two free throws, Seutia’s basket with 35 seconds remaining gave the Lions a 67-66 lead. The Lions missed two free throws at the 18-second mark, but Matthews made two free throws with 14 seconds left for a 69-66 lead.

The teams played to a 38-38 tie in a frantic first half.

Heartland opened up a 27-5 lead only 6:50 into the game. Matthews made two three-pointers, while Kalaher and Conaway each made one during the early flurry.

The Skippers came back to take a 36-30 lead with two minutes left in the second quarter on 5-of-10 three-point shooting.

Brady Lawson, Shane Greenwood and Yomar Castellano made three-pointers in the first 1:16 of the third quarter to highlight a 19-0 run that gave the Skippers a 26-25 lead. Matthews closed the first half with consecutive three-pointers to tie the game 38-38 at halftime.

Yomar Castellano topped the Skippers with 18 points. Lawson followed with 17.

FH: 11-27-22-6 –66

HC: 25-13-13-18–69

FAIRPORT HARDING SCORING: Yomar Castellano 6-4-18, Jan Castellano 4-0-9, Shane Greenwood 5-0-11, Brady Lawson 6-0-17, Charlie Beardslee 1-1-3, Ben Allen 3-1-8, Abraham Castellano 0-0-0, Isaac Maldonado 0-0-0. TEAM TOTALS: 25, 6-10: 66.

HEARTLAND CHRISTIAN SCORING: Isaiah Matthews 9-2-26, Collin Kalaher 5-2-14, Johnny Meyer 0-0-0, Jack Morgan 1-0-2, Brody Conaway 5-0-11, Jacob Reed 0-2-2, Corban Seutia 6-2-14, Spencer Pruitt 0-0-0. TEAM TOTALS: 26, 8-11: 69.

Three-point goals: Fairport Harding 10 (Lawson 5, Y. Castalano 2, J. Castellano, Greenwood, Allen), Heartland Christian 9 (Matthews 6, Kalaher 2, Conaway).