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AUGUSTA — Taking on the team that broke its heart a year earlier, the Messalonskee boys basketball team was determined to make amends.

It’s not the norm to make Hampden Academy play your style of basketball, not with the Broncos’ defensive acumen and their ability to slow down the game. Yet Messalonskee did just that in the second half Friday night, and won the Class A North title that narrowly avoided its grasp a season ago.

Messalonskee avenged last year’s regional final loss by scoring 30 points in the second half en route to a 49-37 win at the Augusta Civic Center. The victory sends the Eagles to next Friday’s state final against South champion Falmouth, back at the ACC.

“This was our goal at the beginning of the year, and once we got to this game, we didn’t want anybody else; we wanted Hampden,” said Messalonskee coach Sam Smith. “We felt like, if we made it, we would get a good chance to get the game, and the boys wanted it and executed the game plan.”

Ty Bernier scored 17 points for top-seeded Messalonskee (19-2), which also got 10 points apiece from Ryan Parent and Parker Reynolds. Aiden Kochendoerfer had 14 points to lead Hampden, while Sawyer Worcester had nine points and seven rebounds.

The game began as one of runs. No. 2 Hampden (16-5) ran out to a 5-0 lead, after which Messalonskee, fueled by a pair of Parent 3-pointers, scored the next 10 points. The Broncos then got three Kochendoerfer baskets while scoring the next nine points, restoring a two-possession lead early in the second quarter.

“It’s just like every other game; teams are going to go on runs, and you’ve just got to trust your defense,” Bernier said. “We’ve just got to trust each other. We’ve got (Parker Reynolds) anchoring the D, and we have all of us playing up.”

The Eagles went into halftime down 20-19. Then, they put the Broncos on their heels.

A Bernier 3-pointer and Parker Reynolds basket put Messalonskee on top 24-20. Bernier and Sean Achorn sandwiched 3-pointers around a Broncos free throw to stretch the lead to 32-25.

“Going into the locker room, Ty only had (three) points, and he’s one of our best players,” Smith said. “We came out of halftime trying to draw up a play to get him a look, and once he got going, I think that got everybody else going.”

Although Sawyer Worcester answered with a 3-pointer for the Broncos, Achorn hit back with his second 3 of the quarter. A Drake Brunelle steal and basket with 4:57 to go put Messalonskee up nine, and Hampden never got closer.

“(The key to making them play our game was) we got out in transition,” Reynolds said. “That was our game plan coming into it, and we succeeded in that game plan.”

Hampden played a relatively clean game with just seven turnovers but never truly got going offensively. Yet even as his team established a double-digit lead against a team without a true No. 1 scorer, Smith made it clear to his players that they had to slam the door shut.

“Russ Bartlett is one of, if not the best coach in the state, and they had beaten us to go to a state championship last year, so it was never a thing of, ‘Oh, we’ve got them now,’” Smith said. “We were always confident in ourselves, but we still had to take it minute by minute.”

Messalonskee committed just six turnovers and avoided foul trouble. Hampden attempted only seven free throws, two of which came after the game was already decided with four seconds remaining.

These two teams meeting at this stage should have been a surprise to no one. In addition to being the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds entering the tournament, they were also the preseason favorites in Class A North, with Hampden picked to finish first and Messalonskee tabbed for second.

It was fitting, then, for them to meet again — especially after last year’s regional final. That game, in which Zach McLaughlin made three free throws with 17.3 seconds left in a 44-43 Hampden victory, has sat with Messalonskee ever since — and now that the Eagles have exorcized those demons, they have a chance to go one step further.

“That game last year, we’ve thought about it all year long, since fall ball, summer ball — really since the day it happened,” Bernier said. “We thought we should have had it — obviously we lost in heartbreaking fashion — but we’ve still got one more to go.”