After 12 wins in as many tries this season, the 10th-ranked Overlea Falcons found a new way to win yesterday.

Ugly.

In a game that will be remembered better for its offensive chaos than for its textbook efficiency, the host Falcons fumbled their way to a 73-49 win over Loch Raven.

"This was what they call winning ugly," said Overlea coach Doug Eisenhauer. "We have a killer instinct. . . . If we have a team down, we want to beat them to the ground. What happened, though, was we tried to do things too fast."

Case in point -- the second half.

With Overlea (13-0, 11-0 in the Baltimore County 2A-1A Division) comfortably ahead -- by as many as 27 points in the third quarter -- both teams abandoned their half-court offenses in favor of a wide-open, helter-skelter attack.

What followed was a series of no-look, no-catch passes that resulted in 22 turnovers in a 12-minute span.

"This was a street game," said center Bernard Hopkins, who led Overlea with 24 points and 18 rebounds in just over three quarters of play. "We made a lot of mistakes."

When the Falcons weren't making mistakes, however, they were scoring.

They began the game with a 7-0 run, and led Loch Raven (11-4, 8-3) by 24-7 at the end of the first quarter, as Hopkins scored nine.

Dominating in every facet of the game, they extended the lead to 40-16 near the end of the first half.

"We felt we could play with Overlea," said Loch Raven forward Earl Shorter, who led the Raiders with 15 points. "It was just laziness. It was just one big mental lapse."