AUGUSTA — A game of ebbs and flows between Lewiston and Cony on Monday had more than a few who saw it anticipating how much more excitement the Eastern A basketball tournament could have in store.

Ace Curry hit a 5-foot floater with four seconds left to give the Blue Devils a key 63-61 win over the Rams in the kind of game that would be considered an instant classic if it is repeated in about a month a few miles away at the Augusta Civic Center.

Trever Irish led all scorers with 22 points and seven rebounds. Off the bench, Quintarian Brown added 11 points, five rebounds, four steals and the crucial assist on Curry’s game-winner.

Brown had the ball near the time line on the right sideline when he spotted Curry lurking near the opposite low block and fired a pass to the 5-foot-8 senior guard, who calmly flipped it up over the rest of the Cony defense for his first points of the game.

“He’s usually the one that’s going to get the shot,” Curry said of Brown. “But we worked as a team and the defender underplayed me, so I just stayed down low and said, ‘Yo, I’m here,’ and he saw me. Anyone could have made that shot. It was a great pass.”

T.J. Cusick led Cony with 16 points, while Liam Stokes chipped in with 14 points, six rebounds and six assists.

After Curry’s basket fell through, Cony coach T.J. Maines signaled for but inexplicably was not granted a timeout to set up a final play. Instead, Tyler Tardiff (13 points) was forced to try to beat the buzzer from halfcourt, but his shot was wide left.

“As soon as (Curry’s) shot went up, we’re yelling for a timeout,” Maines said. “The ball goes in at 4.7, and neither official was looking at the bench, which I don’t think is right. At the end of a game, somebody’s got to be looking at the bench.”

“That’s not why we lost the game,” he added. “They made two nice plays at the end that we weren’t defensively prepared for, and that’s too bad. That’s my fault.”

Cony lost an 11-point lead in the first half and a seven-point lead in the fourth quarter. Stokes’ 3-pointer from the right corner made it 56-49 late in the fourth, but Lewiston responded with a 9-0 run, sparked by Brown’s steal and layup and a 3-pointer by Troy Bell with 3:40 left.

Tardiff answered Bell with a 3 of his own to put Cony back in front briefly. Brown tied it with a free throw. With 57 seconds to go, Lewiston came out of a timeout with a play that resulted in an acrobatic reverse layup by Tykeem Gaines. Stokes then tied it at 61 by knocking down two free throws with 23 seconds remaining.

The Blue Devils (8-6) rallied from first- and third-quarter shooting barrages by the Rams (9-5) to pull off the comeback. Cony started the game making three of its first four 3-pointers and shot 7-for-11 from the field overall to take a 22-11 lead after one.

“They make you decide early if you’re going to play with composure, the way they play, because it’s so up and down,” Lewiston coach Tim Farrar said. “We were able to get under control in the halfcourt and get the ball inside.”

The Devils’ target inside was Irish, a 6-foot-10 senior who coincidentally scored 22 points in Lewiston’s 77-69 win over the Rams on Dec. 9. With no one standing taller than 6-foot-2, Cony couldn’t challenge Irish underneath, and the senior scored eight points in the second quarter to rally the Devils to a 32-32 tie at halftime.

Cony started to heat up again in the third quarter with 3-pointers by Ben Leet and Cusick. When Irish and 6-foot-4 forward Isaiah Harris went to the bench with three fouls, the Rams started attacking the hoop, and Cusick’s drive made it 45-36.

“We just had to take a deep breath, just come back into the game, huddle up and talk to each other about what we’ve got to do,” Curry said. “A lot of this season, we’ve been down, but we’ve been able to come back.”

Irish and Harris returned to the court late in the third and helped Lewiston cut the deficit to five heading into the final period.

The win vaulted Lewiston into the No. 5 spot in the Eastern A Heal points standings, while the loss dropped Cony from third to fourth in what is sure to be a volatile Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference heading into the home stretch.

“I don’t know that I’ve seen the league quite this crazy,” said Farrar, who is in his seventh year at Lewiston. “There’s going to be a pretty good team that doesn’t get into the tournament, and I think anybody can win it.”

“I’ve got a sneaking suspicion we’re going to end up seeing them again (in the tournament),” Maines said.

Randy Whitehouse — 621-5638

rwhitehouse@mainetoday.com

Twitter:@RAWmaterial33

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