BANGOR – It was a game and an individual performance for the ages, but all Corey DeWitt cared about was the victory.

The senior guard from Ellsworth High School bested Van Buren legend Matt Rossignol’s 22-year-old record for points scored in an Eastern Maine Class B tournament game (51) with 52, but more importantly led his Eagles to an 87-75 triple-overtime victory over Hermon Friday night.

DeWitt shot a solid 41.2 percent (5-for-12) from 3-point range, 47 percent (16-for-34) from the field, 79 percent from the line (15-for-19), and accounted for 60 percent of his team’s total points.

“I was there when Matt set the record,” said Ellsworth coach Jay Brown. “I was an assistant coach at Schenck when Matt scored 51 so I’ve seen them both, but I think this one’s a little better.”

DeWitt certainly won’t disagree with his coach.

“I’d say after I got warmed up in the first half, my stroke was feeling pretty good,” said the speedy, 6-foot-1 guard. “It feels pretty good, but I don’t know, I can’t really describe it right now.

“I mean, I don’t know how many times I thought we were down and out, but we kept coming back.”

The game had more heart-stopping moments than a triple bypass and looked nothing like a typical No. 2 vs. No. 7 regional quarterfinal game. The second-seeded Eagles had beaten Hermon twice in the regular season, but the Hawks had some surprises in store.

The main one was tempo as the Hawks stopped trying to dictate tempo and slow it down, and opted to fly up and down the court with the Eagles.

“They played an awesome game. They went against everything we thought they were going to do,” DeWitt said. “We thought they were going to come down, set up their plays and just try to grind us and keep the score low, but they ran with us and you have to give them credit. We have pretty good conditioning, I think, and they stayed with us.”

The 15-3 Eagles now play No. 3 Camden Hills Wednesday in a 7:05 p.m. semifinal. Hermon winds up 12-8.

The drama was constant in this game, but white-knuckle time really began in the final minutes of the fourth quarter. Hermon led 55-51 with 1:57 left, but DeWitt (who else?) led a 7-0 scoring run with three points and put his Eagles up 58-55 with 16 seconds to go.

Things looked good for the home team before freshman guard Colton Gross stunned the Ellsworth fans with a 3-pointer from the left corner with two seconds left. Neither team had any timeouts left, so time ran out.

The first overtime proceeded conservatively as each team traded leads and only generated 10 total points before going scoreless in the last 90 seconds.

Hermon led by as many as seven in double overtime, thanks to a 9-3 scoring run fueled by four of sophomore guard Kevin Tarr’s 14 points, but the Hawks missed a chance to clip the Eagles’ wings by missing two 1-and-1 foul shots and eight of 14 overall in the four-minute period.

DeWitt (surprise) made them pay via his second traditional 3-point play with 39 seconds left to make it 72-69 Hermon. Then senior guard Chris Archer – playing in his first game back since breaking his hand – hit a shot 10 seconds later off a pass from Chris Murphy, who took a pass from Archer after he stole the ball near Hermon’s baseline. Hermon then missed three of four foul shots, but led 73-71 before Murphy drew a foul with five seconds left and hit both free throws to tie it.

Hermon’s Derek Helms missed a 3-point attempt and Ellsworth’s Demetrios Katsiaficas got the rebound – one of his 12 – and passed to DeWitt, but this was one of his rare misses as his shot from the top of the key wasn’t even close at the buzzer.

The third OT was all DeWitt, who finished with a nine-point flourish and put the game away.

“After the second overtime, coach told us this is where we have fun,” DeWitt said with a big smile.

Brown was still visibly awed by what he’d seen over the previous 21/2 hours.

“You know, it’s really weird because they defended Corey the first half really well and then he just went off, and he can do that… That’s him,” he said while shaking his head. “We’re in a timeout and I diagram a play and Corey says ‘Hey, let them clear out, I can get this guy’ and I’m thinking ‘All right, hey … I’m the best coach in the world'”

DeWitt also had 11 rebounds, three assists and two steals.

Katsiaficas was the Eagles only double-digit scorer with 17 points, but James Doe had a big game with 14 points, four assists, two steals and a block.

The Eagles outrebounded the Hawks 54-28 overall and 27-5 offensively.

Gross led the Hawks with 19, but Tarr had 14 to go along with nine assists. Ben Hinton had 12 points, Helms had 10 points, and Nick Robinson had nine points and 10 boards before fouling out.

EAGLES 87, HAWKS 75

Hermon (12-8) Ellsworth (15-3)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Gross 7 14 1 3 19 Doe 2 6 5

Deabay 2 6 3 7 7 Ktsiafcas 5 17 4 4 17

Tarr 6 9 2 4 14 Emeigh 0 0 0 0

Helms 3 7 2 3 10 DeWitt 16 34 15 19 52

Hinton 4 6 4 4 12 Kelley 0 4 0

Robinson 4 6 1 2 9 Stubbs 1 1 3

Thomas 2 6 0 0 4 Murphy 1 2 6

Archer 1 4 0 2

Coombs 1 6 0 2

Morse 0 0 0 0

Totals 28 54 13 23 75 Totals 27 74 25 35 87

Hermon 13 26 41 58 63 73 75

Ellsworth 9 22 37 58 63 73 87

3-pt. goals – Hermon (6-17): Gross 4-8, Helms 2-6, Deabay 0-1, Thomas 0-2; Ellsworth (8-19): DeWitt 5-12, Katsiaficas 3-4, Kelley 0-1, Murphy 0-1, Archer 0-1