BANGOR – Ed Leeman remembers playing for Calais in the Eastern Maine Class C tournament some two decades ago, and understanding the role confidence plays in enabling players and teams to achieve success.

“Confidence is enormous,” he said. “I remember when I was here in ’86, and you get on the floor and whether you think you’re ready to play or not, sometimes you’re not. You can have the best athletes in the world, but if they look at that rim and it becomes the size of a dime instead of the size of the ocean, you can be in trouble.”

Twenty years later Leeman is the head coach at his alma mater, which will take a 21-0 record into Saturday night’s Class C state final against Winthrop at the Augusta Civic Center.

And when he looks at his troops, he sees a talented – and confident – team.

“These kids have a lot of basketball savvy, and they’ve got a little swagger about them that’s nice to see,” said Leeman. “It borders on cockiness, but sometimes you’ve got to have that little swagger the great ones have.

“I don’t think we’re arrogant, but we play with confidence, with a lot of heart and soul, and that’s credit to way back in the summer when these kids were putting in their time.”

This Calais team is relatively young, with as many freshmen (three) on the roster as seniors, but it is marked by depth the Blue Devils use to accelerate the pace of the game on both ends of the floor.

Calais relies largely on a seven-player rotation led by Eastern C tourney MVP Brandon Tomah and all-tourney choice Chris Taylor, both juniors, along with seniors Adam Knowles and Mike Guthrie, junior Robbie Rogers, sophomore Sam Bell and freshman Cal Shorey, the team’s tallest player at 6-foot-3.

“We’re really deep,” said Tomah. “Coach tells us that in practice every day, that we’re real deep so you have to work hard to keep your starting position, so we all work very hard.”

That hard work has paid off.

Calais didn’t have a ton of close games during the season, and cruised through the Eastern Maine tournament – winning three games by an average of 21.3 points.

But the season hasn’t been without tests. A trip to the St. John Valley for a midseason battle of unbeatens produced a six-point win at Madawaska, and it took a last-second shot to produce victory in Calais’ first meeting of the season with Downeast Athletic Conference rival Washington Academy.

The rematch with the Raiders at East Machias produced a valuable dose of confidence for the Blue Devils.

“A lot of our games we won by a lot, but we beat WA by two in Calais and we went up there later on and won by about 24,” said Taylor. “That was a great boost.

“We played WA real early in the season and we had to hit a last-second shot to beat them, and then we went to their place and beat them by about 25,” added Leeman. “We started playing better defense, taking care of the ball and doing a lot of the little things that takes a team from being a first-round knockout team [in the 2005 tourney] to a team that can get to the point where we’re at right now.”

And the Blue Devils are confident they have one big game left in them this season.

“We’re playing really well,” said Tomah. “We’re still not playing up to our capabilities, but we’re going to get there come states.”