Who would’ve thought that the Bonny Eagle girls basketball team could turn the ball over 20 times in the first half of Wednesday’s Western Class A preliminary round game against Kennebunk and still be there at the end, with a chance to win?

The players, that’s who. And coach Marc Sawyer, too. He didn’t doubt his girls, he couldn’t – not after watching them come back from 14 points down to beat Windham two weeks ago.

The visiting Scots (11-8), ranked ninth, trailed the No. 8 Rams (10-9) by seven points with 1:40 to go, but rallied to tie the game and win in overtime, 42-41.

Bonny Eagle will play top-seeded Sanford (17-1) Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Cumberland County Civic Center.

“I don’t even have any words, not at all,” said junior guard Megan Ledoux, who finished with 10 points. “When were down by five at the half, I was like, ‘We already lost this.’ And then we got down by 10, and I was like, ‘Oh god!’ But then, we had the same thing at the Windham game where we were down and then we came back to win. It’s so exciting. I don’t even know, it hasn’t even hit yet.”

When it does hit – in a day, a week or a month – Ledoux and her teammates will have something to remember about the 2005-06 season, even if it doesn’t end with a state championship.

When the Scots made all those turnovers to go down by five, 20-15, at halftime, Sawyer was thinking that maybe his team was a bit rusty.

“One of the tough things – and it has to do with the MPA moving the tournament to February break – is we were done last Tuesday,” he said. “We played our last game last Tuesday. We worked out, but it’s nothing like going to play games. We hadn’t played in eight days.”

But the Scots fought to keep it close. They turned the ball over seven more times in the third quarter, but didn’t lose much more ground. When the fourth quarter began, they were down, 29-20.

Junior center Laura Bell (nine points) made it 29-22 with a jumper after a steal, and then – after another Kennebunk turnover – Kellsey Howes (15 points) dropped in a foul shot to pull the Scots to within six.

Three minutes into the quarter, though, the Rams had built the lead back up to 10.

“I’m not going to lie, I definitely thought it was going to be tough when we were down by 10,” said Bell. “But we all just knew that we had to keep composure and our team holds together really well.”

So, they just kept plugging away. And slowly, but surely, the Scots crept back into the game. Defense was the key, as Kennebunk would score just one field goal in the game’s final four minutes.

Ledoux knocked down a jumper to make it 37-29 with two minutes to go. Howes followed with a free throw to get the score to 37-30, and with just over a minute to go, junior guard Lyndie Libby hit a three to make it 37-33.

There was hope yet.

“When Lyndie hit that three and we were only down by four, and I was like, ‘We got this. We’ve been here before. We can do this,'” said Ledoux.

With 37 seconds to go, Libby drained another jumper, a two-pointer, to make it 37-35. The Scots got the ball back when Kennebunk was called for a carry on an inbounds play.

Now, there wasn’t just hope, but momentum, too. Howes’s putback with 20 seconds to go sent the game to overtime.

“I know that we had the upper edge going into overtime because we were on a roll, so we weren’t going to lose after that,” said Ledoux.

Bell took over in the extra period, scoring all five points for the Scots. More importantly, though, she grabbed a crucial defensive rebound with four seconds to go in the game. The Rams got the ball back after a turnover, but Brooke Kravetz’s shot at the buzzer clanked off the iron.

“We’re going to the Civic Center,” said Bell, “so you can’t ask for more.”

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