CALAIS – The rumblings were evident throughout the Eastern Maine Class C basketball world that this might be the night the streak ended.

Lee Academy came Down East armed with confidence and memories of a narrow loss to Calais on the opening night of the season, and the Pandas pushed the two-time defending state champions to the brink in Tuesday night’s rematch.

But only to the brink.

Freshman Cam Shorey’s 3-pointer from the left baseline with less than two minutes left gave Calais the lead for good, and the Blue Devils held on to edge Lee 67-60.

The win lifted top-ranked Calais to 11-0 this season, 55-0 since the start of the 2005-06 campaign. Second-ranked Lee dropped to 10-3.

“This isn’t our first time in this situation,” said Calais junior guard Jordan Leeman. “We’ve got real good leadership, and we’ve got five kids on our team who want the ball in their hands all the time, so that makes it easier.”

The game was in its eighth tie of the second half, at 56-56, when Shorey delivered the game’s key shot on a feed from Leeman.

“We talk about that shot all the time,” said Calais coach Ed Leeman. “That’s not a good shot. It’s only a good shot because it went in, and he knows that, but he’s got the guts to take it, so he knew if he missed it how much he was going to get chewed out by me. It was a good shot because it went in.”

“We were sagging off because they hadn’t hit a 3 all night, but they had been killing us driving to the rim,” added Lee coach Randy Harris. “We gave Shorey the toughest shot in basketball, that deep corner 3 and he drains it. If he misses that, we have the ball with a tie score.”

Lee’s Dean MacDonald made a fast-break layup to pull Lee within 59-58 with 1:21 left before Calais senior Rod Tirrell – who scored 10 fourth-quarter points – and Lee’s Devan Parker swapped two free throws each to leave Calais with a 61-60 edge with 18.9 seconds left.

After a Calais timeout, Cal Shorey threw a long inbounds pass to brother Cam, who fed Tirrell for what turned out to be a clinching four-point play. Tirrell was intentionally fouled while making the layup and added two free throws to make it 65-60.

“We said they might push [the defense] up, and if we can go over the top, let’s go. But we had to be sure, and Cal threw an absolute bullet,” said coach Leeman.

Senior guard Sam Bell led Calais with 24 points, 16 in the first half, and 10 rebounds, while Jordan Leeman scored 14 and Tirrell added 13.

But not all was lost for Lee on this night. The Pandas fell behind 16-1 in the game’s first 4 minutes, 29 seconds, then rallied to within 23-20 before leading scorer Hakeem Rodriguez was ejected early in the second quarter after picking up his second and third technical fouls.

But the Pandas persevered behind junior guard Luis Medina, who scored 21 of his game-high 32 points after intermission, mostly on long-range jumpers and penetration moves into the lane. Medina hit seven straight shots during one stretch, including a pull-up 3-pointer to give Lee its only lead, 49-48, with 6:58 left in the game.

“We put a scare into them,” said Harris. “I told the kids before the game that I thought this was going to be the second one of three times we played them, and the one that counts is the one in front of 5,000 people on Feb. 23 on Saturday night in the Eastern Maine championship.

“We were one stop away from having a chance to win in their place. … We’ve shown we can play with them, but we’ll look forward hopefully to Round 3.”

eclark@bangordailynews.net

990-8045

BLUE DEVILS 67, PANDAS 60

Lee Academy (10-3) Calais (11-0)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Rodriguez 2 8 0 0 4 Cam Shry 2 6

Bingham 2 6 3 6 9 Carr 0 1 0

Harris 0 1 1 2 1 S. Cvngh 1 2

Parker 1 10 4 7 6 Leeman 5 9 14

MacDonald 2 4 0 0 4 Cal Shry 3 8

Norris 0 0 0 0 0 Bell 9 18 24

Doty 1 4 0 0 2 O’Neill 0 1 0 0

Medina 12 16 5 6 32 Tirrell 4 9 13

Beers 1 2 0 0 2

Totals 21 51 13 21 60 24 50 18 24 67

Lee Acad. 11 30 45 60

Calais 20 31 46 67

3-pt. goals – Lee Acad. (5-11): Medina 3-4, Bingham 2-3, Rodriguez 0-1, MacDonald 0-1, Parker 0-2; Calais (1-6): Cal Shorey 1-1, Bell 0-1, Leeman 0-2, Tirrell 0-2

JV: Calais 63-50

Attendance: 500