AUGUSTA — Aly LeBlanc jumped into the air and pumped her fist as teammate Erin Whalen ecstatically shot both arms toward the sky.

Kayla Bess and Madeline Wood sprinted to join their teammates just below the visitor’s foul line at the Augusta Civic Center, while Emily Oliver casually jogged over, still in shock from the moment.

“I was like ‘wow,” Oliver said, “I just won the game for us.'”

Oliver’s jumper from the left block as time expired was the difference as No. 10 Madison (11-9) stunned No. 2 Boothbay (17-2) 43-41 in the Western Class C girls basketball quarterfinals Tuesday evening.

“They took the attitude that we had nothing to lose,” Madison coach Al Veneziano said. “If you’re told over and over again that you can’t win, you kind of have to dig in, go out there and (win).”

The Bulldogs led for most of the contest, yet with 1 minute, 1 second remaining they found themselves trailing 41-38 following a pair of free throws from Boothbay’s Sara Durgan.

Madison needed just 11 seconds to answer though, as Bess curled to the basket off a foul-line screen from LeBlanc, took a pass from Whalen and put in a layup plus the foul. Bess buried the foul shot to tie it up, yet it appeared as if Boothbay would get the last shot after burning 36 seconds off the clock and taking a timeout.

It was pretty clear who the Seahawks would call upon in the clutch, senior Morgan Crocker. The 5-foot-5 guard had almost singlehandedly kept Boothbay in the game at times and had already poured in a game-high 23 points.

“She’s a good player,” Veneziano said. “She can shoot the ball, she can do a lot of things with the ball (and) she makes you very nervous.”

Crocker would never get a chance to win it for her team though. Before she could get the ball, teammate Kate Friant was whistled for a double dribble violation to give Madison its opportunity to win the game with 9.2 seconds remaining.

“We knew that this was our chance and that we were going to get it,” Bess said. “We were pretty confident about that.”

Bess may have had confidence in the final outcome, however, the way her team arrived at that result required some improvisation.

“We were going for a play down on the baseline and then a pass to the inside for a layup,” she said. “When that goes askew there are a bunch of emotions going through your head and you just look for the open person to take the shot.”

In this instance that was Oliver. After Wood took the inbounds pass she sent the ball across the court to Bess 30 feet away from the basket on the right wing. As the clock approached 3 seconds, she thought to heave it toward the rim when she saw Oliver wide open.

Bess — a standout player on the school’s soccer team — sent the ball across the court as if it were a throw-in on the pitch to Oliver. The junior forward caught the ball and with little wasted motion tossed it into the hoop just as the final buzzer sounded.

“Both teams played very well, they both worked hard and we held it together,” Veneziano said. “We held it close and had a chance to win it at the end. That’s all you can ask for and you have to be really proud of our effort.”

Effort truly proved to be the difference for Madison and it showed statistically. The Bulldogs were just 18-of-51 from the field, 6-of-10 from the line, turned the ball over 16 times and yet still won thanks in large part to a 35-23 advantage in rebounds. Whalen led that charge with 12 boards, Oliver had nine and LeBlanc five.

According to Bess, that physical edge that the Bulldogs showed Tuesday has not always been there.

“We started out the season not as tough or physical, but we play some pretty physical teams in the Mountain Valley Conference,” she said. “I think it’s helped us along this way to get to this point.”

That point is the Western C semifinals, where the Bulldogs will look to replicate the same magic Thursday at 2:30 p.m. at the Civic Center when they take on No. 3 Dirigo.

Evan Crawley — 621-5640

ecrawley@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @Evan_Crawley

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