It was nearly a year ago that Albuquerque Hope Christian capped an unbeaten regular season in District 5AAA with a buzzer-beating, game-winning basket from Paul Seaton in a visit to Perez-Shelley Memorial Gymnasium.

In the Huskies' most recent visit to St. Michael's, all they needed were the long arms of 6-foot-7 senior center Arren Wells.

Hope's all-time leading scorer padded his career stats with 19 points, 21 rebounds and three blocked shots in leading the top-ranked Huskies (21-1, 4-0) to a 65-56 overtime win over the second-ranked Horsemen (17-4, 3-1).

Wells scored six of his points in the extra session as the Huskies enjoyed a 10-1 advantage in OT.

"Well, he's a big guy with long arms, so he's got that going for him," said St. Michael's power forward Matt Barela, who drew occasional face time with Wells in the paint. "He's got a lot of talent. He knows what he's doing in the low post and he made the right moves at the right time. He put his team on his back and carried them for a while."

If Wells did the carrying, Seaton did the initial heavy lifting. The shooting guard had 11 of his 17 points in the first quarter on a trio of 3-pointers and a fastbreak layup off a Wells steal.

"What we needed for Arren was better spacing and Paul hitting those early shots helped with that," said Jim Murphy, Hope head coach.

With a packed house looking on -- the game was officially sold out about 45 minutes before tipoff -- St. Michael's erased deficits of seven points in the first quarter and 13 in the final period.

The second rally came after Hope built what appeared to be a commanding 46-33 lead on a Tanner Davis basket with 6 minutes, 41 seconds left in regulation.

The Horsemen responded with a 14-2 run over the next three-plus minutes.

They eventually took a 54-53 lead with 1:20 left on a pair of free throws by Antonio Garcia, then they forced overtime when Matt Tapia converted one of two free throws with 36 seconds left.

"St. Mike's is always a good team; they're not going to quit on us," Murphy said. "It was a great game. Great game for the spectators, at least."

Like an NBA team that expends so much energy erasing a huge deficit only to fall flat once back in the game, St. Michael's appeared to be back on its heels once overtime began.

Not so, said head coach Ron Geyer.

"We just took a very good basketball team, maybe the best team in the state right now, to overtime," he said. "We did everything but win the game."

The Horsemen had four fewer turnovers and attempted 31 free throws.

Their aggressive offense had Wells, Seaton and Micah Murphy all playing with four fouls in the fourth quarter and overtime.

None of them, however, picked up a fifth.

"Once we got that lead we switched to a man [defense] and we wound up fouling," Jim Murphy said. "St. Mike's made us pay from the free-throw line. That's something good teams always do, and that's a very good team."

Barela led the Horsemen with 18 points. His free throw early in OT was the team's only point in the extra period.

Tapia played well off the bench for St. Michael's, finishing with 12 points. He had eight in the first quarter to help the Horsemen come back from an early 16-9 hole.

The killer, both coaches later admitted, was the offensive rebounding. Hope had 17 to only five for St. Michael's.

"You have to give it up to those guys," Barela said. "The played really well when they had to. Every guy on the floor for them can shoot and it makes it hard to defend a team when they shoot the ball the way they did. They deserved this win, but that's a team we definitely want to see again."

Round 2 between the Class AAA heavyweights will be Feb. 18 in Hope's Ehlert Gymnasium.

"Just the first of what will probably be a few good games between us," Murphy said. "Can't get too high or two low just yet because we're not done with each other yet."

Contact Will Webber at 986-3060 or wwebber@sfnewmexican.com.