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The moment struck Sam Smith — and the second-year Messalonskee boys basketball coach wanted to make sure his players felt it, too.

Looking behind him, Smith saw a wall of blue and red stretching to the top of the Augusta Civic Center rafters; across the court, Falmouth fans in blue in yellow, and countless spectators filling the extra seating; to his side, two packed student sections, loud as could be.

“I told my players and coaching staff, ‘Make sure you take 15-30 seconds — no more, no less — and just take it all in,’” Smith said. “You look around and see all these people, it’s just an amazing thing to see and an amazing feeling to be in that game. … It was an amazing night.”

Messalonskee and Falmouth made it so in the Class A final, giving fans an unforgettable evening of Maine high school basketball at its grandest. Powered by a 43-point game from senior Davis Mann, the Navigators rallied back from a huge deficit late for a 70-60 overtime win that has been chosen as the 2024-25 Varsity Maine Boys Game of the Year.

Both Messalonskee and Falmouth made it to the title game after heartbreak a year earlier. The Eagles lost a one-point game to Hampden Academy in the 2024 Northern Maine final, while a Navigators team with title ambitions was upset by Westbrook in the Class A South quarterfinals.

The two teams played like they were determined to right those wrongs. Stiff defense from both early carried Falmouth (19-3) to a 9-7 lead through one quarter, and the game remained tight until a Messalonskee run fueled by Ty Bernier (team-high 24 points) propelled the Eagles to a 28-19 advantage at the half.

“I don’t think we were getting the best shots off,” Mann, who recently committed to St. Joseph’s College, recalled of Falmouth’s struggles late in the second half. “Our defense was also really struggling, and they were making a lot of tough shots.”

Although Messalonskee (19-3) led by as many as 13 in the second half, Falmouth stayed in it thanks to some big shots from Mann, whose 43 points were just three shy of the Class A title game record set by Brunswick’s Ralph Mims in 2004. Mann scored 26 of those points in the fourth quarter and overtime. With the Eagles up 51-43 with 1:43 to go, though, things looked bleak for the Navigators.

Yet Falmouth hit back with a layup from Jaxon Cameron and a 3-pointer from Mann to pull back within one possession with 1:25 left. Then, with Messalonskee up 54-52, Mann made an off-balance pass through two Eagles defenders that found David Graiver, who laid it in to tie the game 31 seconds left.

“The biggest play of that game was that assist,” said Falmouth coach Dave Halligan. “That’s what those type of players do, and I think from there, once we got it to overtime, we had a good feeling. That’s when I said, ‘Hey, it’s a brand-new game; let’s do what we do well,’ and the kids did that.”

Indeed, overtime belonged to Falmouth. The Navigators went on an 8-0 run to start the extra period and later stretched the lead to double digits at 68-58, a lead that they never relinquished to win their seventh state title under Halligan and ninth overall.

Smith, who is now the coach at Lake Region, said he has watched the game multiple times and still can’t seem to comprehend how Messalonskee let the game slip away. But losing didn’t dim his pride in a team that finished with the best record in school history — and one that nearly withstood a legendary individual performance.

“I felt like our kids were too good of kids and too talented to not get the respect they deserved, and outside of anyone in (central Maine) who knew how good we were, they didn’t get it,” Smith said. “Falmouth was the better team in the end, but I feel like those kids finally earned that respect they hadn’t earned all year that night.”

Falmouth’s win was the second of back-to-back dramatic championship game victories. Seven days earlier, the Navigators defeated a top-seeded Noble team led by eventual Mr. Maine Basketball winner and Varsity Maine Player of the Year Jamier Rose, 56-53, in the Southern Maine final, which also was considered for Varsity Maine Boys Game of the Year.

Falmouth’s seniors drew on that game, just as they drew on their previous heartbreaks. Before the 2024 quarterfinal loss to Westbrook, the Navigators had lost consecutive state finals, first to Cooper Flagg and Nokomis in 2022 and then on a last-second layup to Brewer in 2023.

“We were pretty much all seniors, except for a couple of us, and after all that, we wanted it really badly,” Mann said. “It was our goal from the beginning of the season, and we went at it. We wanted to get it done this time.”