BANGOR – It was a play brothers Kerry and Lanny Thompson had run hundreds of times before in teammate Mike Lowell’s front yard.

“Us against Michael and Chris Byron,” said Kerry, a senior on the Schenck of East Millinocket boys basketball team. “We’ve had some epic battles.”

The venue was far different Thursday night and the stakes much higher, but the play was the same, and Kerry Tbompson fed Lanny Thompson for a layup with 11 seconds left to lift No. 1 Schenck to a 50-49 victory over No. 4 Lee Academy in an Eastern Maine Class D semifinal at the Bangor Auditorium.

Schenck (19-2) will play No. 2 Deer Isle-Stonington in Saturday’s regional final.

Trailing 49-48, Schenck inbounded the ball with 26.3 seconds left and worked the ball along the perimeter, eventually to Kerry Thompson on the left wing.

Thompson penetrated Lee’s 1-2-2 zone, drew two defenders to him, and spotted his younger brother open along the baseline. The pass was clean, and Lanny Thompson banked in a close-range shot to give Schenck a one-point lead.

“Coach [Steve LeVasseur] basically wanted us to get a play driving to the hoop, and Kerry drove and saw me down low, and I got a layup,” said Lanny Thompson, a junior.

Lee (13-8) had two chances in the final seconds. First, Tom Bird launched an errant shot from the key, but Byron grabbed the air ball with a toe out of bounds.

The Pandas inbounded the ball again with 3.3 seconds left, but Devan Parker’s contested shot from the top of the key bounced off the backboard.

“It’s unreal right now,” said Kerry Thompson. “I’m still shaking. We’re going to Eastern Maines, baby.”

Byron led Schenck with 19 points and 14 rebounds, while Kerry Thompson had 11 points and seven rebounds. Lanny Thompson added nine points, while Lowell had nine rebounds and six assists and held Bird – a 1,000-point scorer – to one field goal and eight points.

“This is probably the hardest game I’ve ever been in, back and forth and back and forth,” said Byron. “We dug ourselves a little hole in the beginning, but we had enough time and hopefully enough talent to get out of it.”

Peter Pickering and Sydney Surratt each scored 11 points for Lee, with Pickering also hauling down 11 rebounds. Jon Connick scored 10 points for the Pandas.

“We gave ourselves a chance, it just came down to them making a shot with 10 seconds to go,” said Lee coach Randy Harris. “If they had shot and missed and we had blocked out and gotten the rebound, it might have been a different result.”

The third meeting of the year between Schenck and Lee – the Wolverines also swept two regular-season games – was so physical that Bird wore three different-numbered jerseys because the first two were bloodied.

The Pandas controlled the game early, building a 23-13 lead after scoring seven straight points midway through the second quarter.

But Schenck upped its own intensity and clawed back within 27-25 by intermission.

Lee built a 37-28 third-quarter cushion, but again Schenck rallied as 3-pointers by Kerry Thompson and Aaron Hutchins helped the Wolverines pull within 37-35 at the end of the period.

Schenck finally took the lead at 40-39 on a Byron 3-pointer with 6:01 left and took a 46-41 led on a 15-foot jumper by Kerry Thompson with 5:06 to play.

But Surratt scored on a drive, and Pickering fed Jon Connick for a layup and hit two free throws to restore the Pandas to a 49-47 lead with 1:38 left.

Byron made 1 of 2 free throws with 48.6 seconds left to make it a one-point game.

WOLVERINES 50, PANDAS 49

Lee Academy (13-7) Schenck (18-2)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Coulombe 0 0 0 0 0 Hutchins 1 3

Connick 5 8 0 0 10 McLghln 0 0 0

Surratt 5 11 0 0 11 Lowell 1 8 2

Parker 3 8 0 0 6 K.Tmpsn 5 13 11

Pickering 4 10 3 4 11 Graham 3 12 6

MacDnld 0 0 0 0 0 Byron 6 12 19

Bird 1 8 6 8 8 L.Tmpsn 4 8 1 9

Doty 1 1 1 2 3

Totals 19 46 10 14 49 Totals 20 60 13 50

Lee Academy 15 27 37 49

Schenck 9 25 35 50

3-pt. goals – Lee Academy (1-7): Surratt 1-2, Connick 0-1, Parker 0-1, Bird 0-1, Pickering 0-2; Schenck (4-21): Byron 2-4, K. Thompson 1-4, Hutchins 1-6, Lowell 0-3, Graham 0-4