SPRINGFIELD — Anna’s comeback try fell short in a 58-51 loss to East Clinton in a Division III district final on Saturday at Springfield High School.

Without the services of leading scorer Libby Evanshine for the final 13:31 because of an injury and point guard Jordan Collom for the final 3:42 because of fouling out, East Clinton managed to hold on and earn the win.

The Astros (24-2) advance to the Division III Region 12 bracket to take on Versailles (16-10) on Wednesday at 8 p.m. in Springfield. Versailles earned its spot in the regional semifinal with a 38-21 win over Madeira on Saturday.

EC led 39-19 at the 4:33 mark of the third quarter before the Rockets started slowly digging out of their hole. Anna pulled within 50-46 with 1:42 left in the game and trailed 52-48 with 1:21 to go.

That would be as close as the Rockets would get as the Astros held them off going 6-of-11 at the charity stripe down the stretch.

Kami Whiteaker, who led the Astros with 16 points, hit four of her six free throws in the final 81 seconds. For the whole fourth quarter, she went 10-of-13 from the line. She moved to point guard when Collom fouled out with 10 points.

EC sub Megan Tong added 11 — on a pair of free throws with 20.5 seconds remaining in the contest to make it 57-48, a pair of treys late in the second quarter to send the Astros into the break with a 33-16 cushion, and a free throw and a duece during East Clinton’s 11-2 run to start the game.

Her first free throw came 19 seconds into the game when she was pressed into duty to make the attempt for a shaken up Whiteaker after her game-opening three-pointer.

Anna (16-10) answered EC’s game-opening run with a 9-2 spurt to pull within 13-11 after a quarter.

After trading baskets to start the second quarter, the Astros rattled off 10 straight points to build a 26-13 advantage. EC also would score the last six points of the half.

Jayden Murphy, who hit three from behind the arc on the afternoon, started the second half with one to give EC its first 20-point margin, 36-16.

Brenna Cobb led Anna with 15 points while Liz Staudter scored 10.