Boys basketball: Messalonskee stuns Lawrence at the buzzer in OT

FAIRFIELD — The Messalonskee boys basketball team took some inspiration from the multi-time NBA champion Golden State Warriors on Tuesday night.

Ty Bernier grabbed a rebound with under 5 seconds remaining and instinctively heaved the ball to halfcourt, where senior guard Sam Dube ran under it and all the way to the hoop — letting go of a game-winning layup with 0.4 seconds showing on the clock to lift Messalonskee to a 59-57 overtime win over Lawrence and a season sweep of its rivals.

Dube finished with 10 points, four of them in overtime.

“I let go of the ball in my hand and heard the buzzer,” Dube said. “It was good timing. Credit Ty Bernier. He got hurt in the third quarter and I think his eye was almost swollen shut, but he went and got that rebound and made a great pass.”

“We run this drill in practice, we call it ‘Golden State’ because they play really fast,” said first-year Messalonskee coach Sam Smith. “We try to get 35 layups in two minutes. As they’re running off the court, Ty came over to me and said, ‘Coach, that’s ‘Golden State.’ That makes me happy as a coach — they’re not just doing the drill, they’re putting it into the games.”

Messalonskee (7-3) almost never had the chance to win it.

Center Merrick Smith, who finished with 31 points and 13 rebounds for the Eagles, drained a pair of free throws with 25 seconds remaining to tie the game at 55-55. Lawrence had possession and eyes on getting the game’s final shot.

Dane Zawistowski missed a jumper to set the stage for the Bernier-Dube heroics.

“We ran out the delay of game, but we were probably supposed to take the shot with two seconds left, not four,” said Lawrence coach Jason Pellerin.

Messalonskee’s Sam Dube, left, puts in a buzzer beater layup against Lawrence in a boys basketball game Tuesday in Fairfield. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

“That’s the kind of team we are,” Dube said. “We always fight through adversity and the game isn’t over until the final buzzer.”

An old-fashioned three-point play from Smith had given the Eagles the lead with 3:29 left in the fourth quarter, but Zawistowski rattled home a kick-out three with 11.5 seconds remaining in regulation to send the game to the extra session.

Lawrence (4-4) got buckets from Gavin Lunt and Cole Quirion in overtime, including Quirion’s jumper from the right elbow to give the Bulldogs the lead for the final time, but two Smith free throws and Dube’s buzzer-beater overcame the deficit.

“I can’t say enough good about Sam Dube,” Sam Smith said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a kid as good as a leader as he is. He’s unselfish. He could be the best player on the floor every night, but he’s so grounded within himself as a person. He deserves all types of recognition, because he does all kinds of good stuff for us that doesn’t show up on the stat sheet.”

The Eagles hope that a game like Tuesday’s, following a string of recent lackluster seasons, will be the building block that propels the second half of the season.

“Hopefully, this is a turning point in our season,” Sam Smith said. “I think we’ll be able to look back on this, when everything was going against us, we found a way to win. That’s what good teams do.”

Bernier added 11 points in addition to his game-winning assist.

Lunt finished with a team-high 16 points to pace Lawrence, which opened its season with a 10-point loss at Messalonskee in December. Zawistowski finished with a 15-point night and Quirion added 14.