It’s hard to be happy after a heartbreaking overtime loss, but the youthful Veritas Christian boys basketball team has plenty to gain from the crunch-time situations they so often experience.

After coming up on the short end of an exciting finish Saturday and falling, 65-61, to St. Mary’s Academy at Haskell Indian Nations University, another tough lesson was learned.

But it was a necessary lesson, so why not when you’re still an incredibly young team?

“We put this away in our memory bank,” Veritas coach Doug Bennett said, “so next time we get in this situation, we don’t make these mistakes again.”

Saturday’s loss was the second overtime game Veritas has played this season. Three of the Eagles’ four losses were by single-digit margins.

“We’re learning how to finish games,” Bennett said. “We’ve had so many close ones.”

The Eagles (2-4), a team with no seniors, two juniors, six sophomores and two freshmen, jumped to a 24-17 lead after one quarter thanks to solid outside play from Kirk Long and Casey Woods, and the always-strong inside play of Mark Randtke.

All three finished the game in double figures. Long had 12 points, Woods finished with 13, and Randtke tallied 20 points and 10 rebounds.

“You have to respect all five of our guys that are out on the floor,” Bennett said. “You can’t leave anybody standing alone. Our guys have good court vision. They see the open man.”

But after the high-powered first quarter, St. Mary’s slowly climbed back in the game. The Crusaders trailed by only five at halftime, and tied the game after three quarters.

That’s when it got wild.

With the game tied at 57 with 2:01 to play, Long found Randtke for an easy bucket. The scoring became sparse after that. Crusader junior Kenneth Engholm scored the game-tying bucket with 24 seconds left, and between that score and the final buzzer, the ball changed possessions four times.

Finally, with less than a second to play, Randtke took the inbound in mid-air and lofted a desperation three-pointer that hit the back of the iron. No dice.

Engholm then put the game away in overtime, scoring all six points for St. Mary’s. Veritas managed just two, on a Randtke basket.

“I thought we did a lot of things good,” Bennett said. “But we just made a couple of errors late. We’re a young team and we’re learning.”

Andrew Bartlow added eight points for the Eagles, including two of the team’s five three-pointers. Engholm led St. Mary’s with 29 points, and senior John Campbell added 18.

Veritas now hits the road for a game Tuesday at Hyman Brand — with thicker skin, no doubt.

“We’re not executing how to finish,” Bennett said, “but we’re learning from the mistakes late. Both the players and myself are learning what we need to do differently.”