LEAVITTSBURG — Back on Dec. 5, the Crestview boys basketball team opened the season with a tough loss to LaBrae.

While a lot of time has passed since then, the Rebels wrapped up the regular season in similar fashion on Friday night, falling to the Vikings 71-40 as LaBrae clinched at least a share of its fourth straight Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference Gray Tier championship.

“It means a lot, that’s what we set out at the beginning of the season to do, add a year to the banner and leave a legacy,” Vikings coach Chad Kiser said. “For this group of seniors, it was a chance to win four in a row, which not many have done. We’ve done it one other time since I’ve been here. We had a lot of adversity, some injuries, missing two starters. … It took a perfect storm to get us back in the hunt. Everything had to roll exactly how we needed it to.”

Thanks in part to a 3-for-3 start in the first quarter by Austin Rowe, LaBrae didn’t miss much in the opening period.

Rowe scored 10 of his game-high 22 points in that first quarter, which included a pair of threes, as the Vikings raced ahead to a 23-16 lead.

“It was typical Austin, which starts to get overlooked because he just does it so regularly that people don’t appreciate it,” Kiser said. “He’s gotta go down and play defense and rebound and play both ends. Just proud of his effort. It’s been a long year for him, having to do a lot of work and really getting everybody’s best defender on him. So, very proud of him.”

Crestview ends the regular season at 8-14 overall and 3-11 in league play.

Crestview did its best to keep up, getting eight early points from Dylan Stoffer, but LaBrae just had too much firepower.

“They play hard. They’re really good,” Crestview coach Lou Mateo said. “They got some really good players over there, very well-coached. We’re still pretty young, and the stuff they do is dynamic. We played as hard as we could and tried to guard their best player with one of our young guys. But their best player is really, really good.”

In the second quarter, the Rebels quickly appeared to run out of gas as they made just one field goal and the Vikings extended their lead to 37-19 by halftime.

“We came out, didn’t play real good defense there in the first quarter,” Kiser said. “After that, we really got after it a little bit better. We covered up their lines, rebounded. I was happy with our effort there. But we really shared the ball tonight. Other than that first quarter, I thought we played both ends the rest of the game, and that’s what we needed to do. We can’t overlook anybody. Just didn’t want to slip up here. After all the work that did happen, we wanted to make sure that we finished it the right way.”

Crestview got open looks, but inopportune turnovers throughout the game often led to run outs and transition baskets for LaBrae.

“Just lack of focus sometimes and just understanding the dynamic of the game,” Mateo said. “Open shots, if you miss them, you’re going to struggle. We did get some open looks, ball just didn’t go our way.”

In the second half, the Vikings continued to keep their foot on the gas, extending their advantage in both the third and fourth quarters.

Along with Rowe, Seth Howell and Dan McLaughlin each also finished in double figures for LaBrae. Howell had 13 points, while McLaughlin had 10.

The Vikings have some time before their first Division V, Northeast 4, playoff game on Feb. 28. No. 8 seed LaBrae will face a familiar foe in No. 23 seeded Lakeview, which beat the Vikings 46-39 just over a week ago.

“We’re going to celebrate here for awhile, but then we have to get back to get ready for Lakeview,” Kiser said. “They got us last week, and now they gotta come to our floor. Hopefully we can play like we did tonight.”

Eli Cope was Crestview’s leading scorer with 10 points, while Grant Gerner had nine.

The Rebels turn their attention to the postseason, where they will open the Division V, Northeast 3, bracket against No. 25 seed Mentor Lake Catholic on Wednesday at 7 p.m.

“We gotta compete a lot better, and us coaches gotta get better with doing some different things too,” Mateo said. “Kind of switched up the gameplan, switched up our defense and we ran something today that we haven’t run before. It worked a little bit, but then we gotta learn how to get in and out of that stuff. Going forward, I think that’s going to benefit us in the long run.”