AUGUSTA — The Narraguagus High girls’ basketball team finally has a Gold Ball to put in the school’s trophy case.

Kelli Kennedy took over in the fourth quarter Saturday night to lead the Knights to their first Class C state championship – a 33-25 win against Boothbay Region at the Augusta Civic Center.

Kennedy scored nine of her 20 points in the fourth quarter to make sure Narraguagus claimed its first Gold Ball in its first trip to the state final.

“I’m really at a loss for words,” said Narraguagus Coach Heather Thompson, who is in her second season. “This won’t sink in for a week or so. It has never happened before. Girls or boys, it has never happened.”

The lead changed hands or the score was tied 11 times in the first three quarters.

“Defense was an important factor for both sides.” Boothbay Coach Tanner Grover said. “We didn’t generate anything offensively, and the looks that we did get just didn’t go down. Just the wrong night to shoot poorly.”

The score was 10-10 at the end of the first half as both teams had difficulty running their offense against the opposing zone defenses.

“I was happy with the way we played in the first half, even though it was a low-scoring game,” said Grover, in his fourth season as coach of the Seahawks. “We definitely moved the ball OK.”

Kennedy, a 5-foot-11 center, finished her career with more than 1,000 points but was limited to three in the first half. She came alive in the second half, however.

“It was just keeping her low and in scoring position,” Thompson said. “We tried to run the overload a little bit and reverse the ball and get it inside.”

The Knights (19-2) took the lead for good when Kennedy hit a turnaround jumper from the right side of the lane to make it 23-22 less than two minutes into the final quarter. She scored the first seven points of the quarter to break the game open.

“She took over the game,” Grover said. “They put her on the perimeter a little bit and let her face the basket.”

Boothbay (20-2) started on a promising note, hitting two of its first three shots and getting two free throws from Page Brown to take a 7-2 lead.

The Seahawks missed their next five shots, though, and Narraguagus pulled ahead. The Knights finished the quarter with a 7-0 run.

Narraguagus missed all six of its shots in the second quarter, when the teams scored a total of four points. Boothbay didn’t fare much better, making just one of its seven shots.

Faith Blethen, a 6-1 freshman who scored nine points to lead the Seahawks, completed a three-point play to put Boothbay in front 13-10 early in the third quarter. But the Seahawks couldn’t widen the lead.

Kennedy had a chance to put the Knights ahead when she was fouled while in the act of shooting just as the buzzer sounded to end the third quarter, but missed both free throws. That allowed Boothbay to take a 22-21 lead into the fourth quarter.

It was Boothbay’s first appearance in a state final since 1984, when the Seahawks won their only Class C title.

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