AUGUSTA — Aly LeBlanc jumped into the air and pumped her fist while teammate Erin Whalen ecstatically shot both arms toward the sky.

Kayla Bess and Madeline Wood sprinted to join their teammates just below the visitor’s foul line, while Emily Oliver casually jogged over, still in shock.

“I was like ‘Wow,'” Oliver said, “‘I just won the game for us.'”

Oliver’s jumper from the left block as time expired was the difference as No. 10 Madison stunned No. 2 Boothbay 43-41 in a Western Class C girls’ basketball quarterfinal Tuesday night at the Augusta Civic Center.

“They took the attitude that we had nothing to lose,” Madison Coach Albert Veneziano said.

“If you’re told over and over again that you can’t win, you kind of have to dig in, go out there and do it.”

The Bulldogs led for most of the contest, yet with 1 minute, 1 second left they found themselves down 41-38 after two free throws by Boothbay’s Sara Durgan.

Madison (11-9) needed just 11 seconds to answer, though, as Bess took a pass from Whalen and put in a layup while drawing a foul. Bess buried the free throw to tie it, but it appeared Boothbay (17-2) would get the last shot after burning 36 seconds and taking a timeout.

It was pretty clear who the Seahawks would call upon: senior Morgan Crocker. The 5-foot-5 guard had already poured in 23 points.

Crocker would never get a chance, though. Before she could get the ball, teammate Kate Friant was called for a double dribble that gave Madison its opportunity with 9.2 seconds left.

“We knew that this was our chance and that we were going to get it,” Bess said. “We were pretty confident about that.”

Bess may have had confidence in the outcome, but getting there required some improvisation when the designed play was covered.

“You just look for the open person to take the shot,” Bess said.

In this instance that was Oliver. After Wood took the inbounds pass, she sent the ball across the court to Bess 30 feet from the basket on the right wing. As the clock approached 3 seconds she thought of heaving it toward the rim before she saw Oliver.

Bess sent the ball across the court and Oliver wasted little motion, tossing it into the hoop just as the final buzzer sounded.

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