Falmouth players scrimmage at the Augusta Civic Center on Wednesday as they prepare to face Messalonskee in the Class A state championship game on Friday. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

AUGUSTA — Davis Mann remembers the last time the Falmouth boys basketball team played at the Augusta Civic Center.

The crowd. The nerves. The final score.

The Navigators were seconds away from claiming the Class A championship in 2023 and avenging the previous year’s title game loss to Cooper Flagg and Nokomis, but a go-ahead layup with four seconds remaining gave Brewer a 42-41 win.

Mann, now a senior and one of the state’s top scorers at 21.8 points per game, didn’t play in the championship game two years ago or the one three years ago. Nor did many of the 11 other seniors currently on Falmouth’s roster. But on Friday, it will finally be their turn when they face Messalonskee, and they can’t wait.

“I vividly remember the atmosphere (against Brewer) and what it was like walking in, out of the locker room,” senior point guard Jaxon Cameron said during a quiet practice session at the Augusta Civic Center on Wednesday. “The noise, the energy, it was just crazy, and I’m looking forward to it again.”

“For me, at least, it’s a completely different feeling, because when we came here sophomore year, there was a low chance that I was going to play,” Mann said. “So it was still stressful, obviously, but a lot less than this. But practicing here and understanding the atmosphere helps a lot with my nerves.”

The Navigators (18-3) and the Eagles (19-2) will tip-off at 7:45 p.m. Friday after the Class A girls final between Mt. Ararat and Hampden Academy. Falmouth is looking for its first state title since 2016. Messsalonskee is trying to win the first in program history.

Falmouth coach Dave Halligan, who over the course of 38 years has led Falmouth to 11 state title games and has won six, says he can determine early on whether a squad has the makings of a championship team. This one did.

“It starts with preseason practice, whether they’re buying in or not, whether they’re working from the first day,” Halligan said. “There are some teams that they wait to get into the tournament and say, ‘Gee, this is pretty good. Maybe we should start working hard.’ But these guys — championship teams seem to work through the whole season. They have one goal at the end, it’s to be playing in the last game. You know, the very first day of preseason they said, ‘We’re playing in the last game of the year.’ And that’s how they handled everything.”

Cameron says it’s an easy mindset for the team to have when looking back at the group’s previous successes.

“Since fourth-grade travel ball, I mean, we honestly have not lost a lot of games,” Cameron said. “If I’m being honest, we’ve been a winning team, and that’s why we have so much fun with it. That’s why we still have 12 seniors.”

Senior guard Billy Birks added: “Playing together for years, you just get a brotherhood, a camaraderie that you kind of feel like you know where they’re gonna go on the court, and you know when they’re gonna cut, you know when they’re gonna pop out. Our teamwork and chemistry is just one of the best I’ve seen on any team.”

The Navigators don’t need Mann to have what Cameron calls “a Davis Game” every night, like the 39-point performance on zero 3-point attempts in the semifinal win against Fryeburg Academy, but it never hurts. When opposing defenses focus on the Mr. Maine basketball semifinalist who’s shooting at a 47.8% clip, the rest of the Navigators are ready to strike.

Birks is second on the team in scoring with 12.9 points per game, while Cameron is third and averages 9.3 points. The point guard leads the Navigators in assists (3.8) and steals (1.9) and is nearly automatic from the free-throw line (92.9%). Senior forward Ezra Hamlin dropped a 14-point, 13-rebound double-double in Falmouth’s quarterfinal win against defending champion Gray-New Gloucester and sank the biggest 3-pointer of the season in the final minutes of the 56-53 regional final win over Noble. After missing the first two tournament games, senior center Tyler Simmons (6.6 ppg, 6.4 rpg) has returned to the lineup.

“They don’t care who scores,” Halligan said. “You watch our tournament’s scoreboard, like in the final game against Noble, a lot of the unsung heroes stepped up. They share the ball. They like each other.”

The trio of guards all agree that the regional final was the type of big-game, high-octane preparation necessary for the state final. Now, they just want the same outcome to carry over.

“I wouldn’t say it’s pressure, I’d say it’s excitement,” Birks said. “… We get one more and we’re gonna try to make the most of it.”