PORTLAND — Oxford Hills grabbed the rebound off a missed free throw and got the ball to Teigan Pelletier.
The sophomore did the rest.
Pelletier hit a game-winning pull-up jumper from 10 feet away to give second-seeded Oxford Hills a 48-47 Class AA North boys basketball regional championship victory over top-seeded Edward Little, advancing the Vikings to next weekend’s Class AA state final.
The Vikings will be playing in their first state championship game since 1990. They’ll face the winner of No. 1 South Portland (19-1) and No. 2 Thornton Academy (13-6), which was played late Saturday night.
Pelletier missed a layup at the end of regulation that would have won the game for the Vikings. The first attempt wasn’t on Pelletier’s mind when he shot the game-winner, nor was anything else other than what he was about to do.
“I just basically saw red,” Pelletier said. “Tanner (Bickford) gave me the ball and in my head I said, ‘I’m going to shoot this.’ That’s really all it was.”
Edward Little’s Eli St. Laurent hit two free throws with 54 seconds left in overtime to put the top-seeded Red Eddies up 47-42.
Cole Pulkkinen hit a pair of free throws for Oxford Hills with 17 seconds remaining.
The Red Eddies lost the ball out of bounds, giving possession back to Oxford Hills, then Pulkkinen hit two more foul shots with nine seconds left to pull the Vikings within one point, 47-46.
Edward Little’s John Shea was fouled with 7.5 seconds left but missed both free throws. Bickford rebounded the second miss and passed the ball to Pelletier near midcourt.
Pelletier drove to the right side and pulled up for a jumper that fell right before the buzzer sounded.
The Red Eddies did call a timeout, so the clock was reset to 0.4 seconds left, but their inbounds pass hit the scoreboard and possession was given back to the Vikings.
“We were saying, ‘If he makes them both, we are going to penetrate and kick out for a 3. If he makes one then we will take whatever they give us,’” Oxford Hills coach Scott Graffam said. “He missed both. Then we just took whatever shot we got and Teigan got in the right spot.”
Pelletier said that he didn’t know where on the court he was going to shoot from.
“It was spur of the moment, I really didn’t know what was going on,” Pelletier said. “Deja vu was going past me, and I didn’t know what was happening.”
Pelletier finished with 24 points. Shea led the Red Eddies with 15.
Against Bangor in the AA North quarterfinals, Pelletier hit a game-winning shot to down the Rams. On Saturday, he was clutch again.
Graffam pointed out that Shea doesn’t miss two free throws in a row often. The Edward Little senior was 7-for-11 from the line up until that point.
“We’re lucky,” Graffam said. “John Shea doesn’t miss two free throws ever in his life. He was tired, I’m sure. We face-guarded him and he had to work hard for every point he had. Fatigue may have been an issue, but I’m not blaming it on that. Cole hits two big free throws and Teigan hits the shot at the buzzer.”
To Edward Little coach Mike Adams, whose team has won two of the past three AA state championships, Saturday’s game was proof of how difficult winning in the late stages of the tournament can be.
“I’m proud of all these kids,” Adams said. “To get to the semifinals, anything can happen. Get to the regional game, you’re going to play someone good, and then we played with someone good.
“I’ve been here 21 years and only won twice, but some teams don’t win any. Troy Barnies played his whole career and didn’t win a playoff game. We worked for the year we had, but it’s hard when it ends.”
After a slow first quarter in which there were nine combined points scored between the two squads, Edward Little and Oxford Hills started to find the bottom of the net in the second period.
Edward Little’s sophomore guard Marshal Adams hit two 3-pointers in the second quarter, but was held to only one more 3 for the rest of the game. Adams made 3 of 4 beyond the arc, but the Vikings tried to limit his touches after Adams hit six 3-pointers against Lewiston in the AA North semifinal Thursday.
“Make it difficult for John and put a hand in Marshal’s face every second of the game,” Pelletier said of Oxford Hills’ defense. “He hit six 3s in the Lewiston game, and if he doesn’t, Lewiston might have won. That’s all it was.”
Shea finished the first half with a free throw to give Edward Little the 18-16 advantage heading into halftime.
Pelletier scored Oxford Hills’ first eight points of the third quarter to give the Vikings a 24-23 lead with 4:15 to play in the period.
Pelletier put up 12 points in the quarter, after which Oxford Hills held a 33-27 lead.
Edward Little’s Hamza Sheikh scored the first four points of the fourth — a layup off of a steal and then a putback off an offensive rebound — to pull the Red Eddies within two, 33-31, with 6:17 to play.
Later in the period, Pelletier and Edward Little’s Pat Anthoine traded 3-pointers to tie the game at 36-36 with 2:52 left in regulation.
Pulkkinen hit two free throws with just under two minutes to play before Shea and then Sheikhhit one free throw apiece to tie the game at 38-38 with 50.9 seconds left.
Pelletier had a look at the basket right before the buzzer, as Oxford Hills held for the final shot of regulation, but missed, forcing overtime.
“I thought coach Graffam had a great game plan going into it,” Adams said. “We’ve been here enough in these situations and people don’t realize how hard it is to score here. They took us out of anything we wanted to do offensively; we were prepared, the kids tried and just nothing was working.
“Offense is hard to come by in games like this. Coaches are good at taking away your strengths, and I think both of us did that. Granted, neither of us are fast-break, pressing teams but we’ve both scored in the 60s, 70s and 80s. We are evenly-matched, and both Graffam and I are old KVAC guys, and it was an old KVAC game. They’re a great representative for AA North and I am happy for Scott Graffam. His kids did a great job.”
Adams hit a 3-pointer but that was followed by a Pelletier layup, leaving Edward Little with a 41-40 lead with 2:41 to play in overtime. Shea hit a layup on the next possession and was fouled, but a lane violation was called and there was no free-throw attempt. The bucket gave Edward Little a 43-40 lead with 2:10 remaining.
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