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AUGUSTA — Shots that were falling earlier in the game suddenly weren’t falling, and the Monmouth Academy boys basketball team lost its standout big man against a much taller foe.

What did the Mustangs do to win another state championship? What they do best: Adapt.

Leading by four with two and a half minutes left, Monmouth went to a small lineup after Jacob Harmon fouled out. That lineup ran out the clock on Machias as the Mustangs completed a 51-41 victory to win the Class D title at the Augusta Civic Center.

“We’ve had to play without Jake for seven games this year (because of injury), so we’ve learned how to go real small: 5-(foot-8), 5-8, 5-8, 5-10 and 6-1,” said Monmouth coach Wade Morrill. “It’s a game of chess, but we just knew that would force their hand a little.”

Levi Laverdiere scored 33 points for Monmouth, reaching the 1,000-point mark for his career on a 3-pointer early in the second half. His output powered the Mustangs to their second state title in three seasons. Monmouth won the Class C championship in 2024.

Laverdiere was hot early, hitting two 3-pointers to give the Mustangs an 8-4 lead through a low-scoring first quarter. He then sank three more 3s in the second quarter, including one from the edge of the Hammond Lumber logo along the sideline as Monmouth took a 28-14 lead into the halftime break.

“It was a mindset of ‘I’m going to do what I can to put that Gold Ball in my hand,’ really,” Laverdiere said. “We knew they were really big, so we knew we had to stop their paint guys and their dribble penetration in the paint.”

Monmouth (17-5) stretched its lead to 34-16 early in the second half, but then Machias awoke.

Led by a string of three baskets from Mickey Fitzsimmons (15 points), the Bulldogs (20-2) cut Monmouth’s lead to 35-28 entering the fourth quarter. Then they cut the deficit to 38-36 with 3:48 to play. 

Monmouth was ahead 42-37 when it deployed a lineup of Laverdiere, Tyler Day, Aiden Oliveira, Gavin Parsons and Rory Foyt after Harmon’s fifth foul. That group whittled down the clock with its ball handling and Machias was forced to foul. The Mustangs made 11 of 12 free throws in the fourth quarter.

“We practice (free throws) every day, so I just had to step up for my team,” said Day, who was Monmouth’s No. 2 scorer with eight points and went 4 for 4 from the line in the fourth. “It was a little bit of pressure, but it was fine.”

Machias had a size advantage with 6-6 Kaiyden Carter and 6-4 Landon Barrett, but Monmouth had a 27-24 rebounding edge. Carter recorded just a single rebound

It was the second consecutive elite defensive performance by Monmouth. After the Mustangs held a high-scoring Mt. Abram team to 42 points in the South final, they shut down a Machias team that was averaging 70.5 points and had scored 100 twice.

“If you watch these good teams play, a lot of them score 25 points per game off of their defense,” Morrill said. “Step 1 to slowing down a really good team is limiting them in transition by limiting them in turnovers and not coughing it up. Step 2 is defensive rebounding, and Step 3 is rotating guys back on every shot.”

If basketball fans throughout Maine didn’t know Laverdiere’s name before, Morrill added, they do now. A performance in which he hit seven 3-pointers, reached 1,000 points for his career and won a Gold Ball is one the junior will remember forever.

“It’s really hard to process, but it feels really good to get a Gold Ball and 1,000 on the same night,” Laverdiere said. “Two years ago was really tight, and this one is really tight, too. I think experience from that game helped us.”