When the final horn sounded Saturday, there was no pig pile of players. The Capers didn’t need a full-court pass, spectacular catch and buzzer-beating basket to secure victory. That all happened less than 48 hours before.

This time, the No. 4 Cape Elizabeth High boys basketball team used a strong middle two quarters and some big shots in the fourth quarter to overcome an early deficit and knock off No. 2 Falmouth 58-48 in Saturday afternoon’s Western Maine Class B finals at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland.

The win was made possible only after the Capers pulled off a dramatic 46-45 upset of No. 1 Greely in last Thursday night’s semifinal. With 3.5 seconds left, Cape trailed by one. Out of a timeout, Conor Lawler inbounded the ball from the baseline and threw a baseball pass down court. Andrew Dickey leapt in traffic to catch it near the top of the key. Two dribbles and an upfake later, Dickey rose up for the final shot. He got it over the Greely defender and it bounced tantalizingly on the rim, all eyes in the ample crowd watching, before dropping through. Dickey didn’t have a chance to see it go in, as his teammates had brought him to the floor and piled on him before he had a chance.

But more on that game later. Cape (17-4) is headed to its second straight Class B state championship game, scheduled to face 21-0 Eastern Maine kingpin Camden Hills at 9 p.m. Friday night at the Civic Center. A year ago, the Capers fell to undefeated Maranacook 56-46 in championship. Cape’s last gold ball came in 1988, when it beat Ellsworth 70-54.

Against Falmouth (17-4), the Capers began slowly. Lawler’s basket more than four minutes in gave them their first points, and they managed only four in the opening quarter, after which they trailed 13-4. The second quarter was a whole different story. Alex Bowe heated up, scoring 10 of his game-high 24 points as the Capers outscored the Yachtsmen 17-6 in the quarter. His 3-pointer with five seconds left in the half gave Cape its first lead at 21-19. The Capers didn’t trail again.

“We had a huge second quarter,” said Bowe, who received the Pierre “Pete” Harnois Award as the outstanding player-sportsman in the West B boys tournament. “We had four points in the first quarter, then we just took off. We had more patience. We got a lot inside, we got a lot of good looks.”

Cape coach Jim Ray said it was a matter of his team getting into the flow of the game and attacking the basket. Neither he nor his players let the early deficit get to them.

“We didn’t panic,” Ray said. “I get criticized for not taking timeouts, but I put pressure on them in practice. It’s a game. Go play. They know. What am I going to tell them? We attacked the basket and survived it. You look at the scoreboard and we’re ahead at halftime.”

The third quarter began as the second ended. Sophomore reserve Cam Brown found Lawler inside for a layup. Conor Moloney added a 3 just under two minutes in as Cape’s lead increased to 26-19. After a steal and finish on a baseline drive by Brown midway through the quarter, Cape led 30-21. The Capers 22-6 run was broken when Falmouth’s junior standout Stefano Mancini scored four straight. But sophomore reserve Theo Bowe (whose shot bears a striking resemblance to older brother Alex’s) made a 3 in the final minute of the quarter and Cape led 35-27 entering the fourth.

The fourth quarter began with Mancini and Alex Bowe going back and forth. Mancini finished the fourth with 11 of his team-high 19 points (“It seemed like 38,” Ray said.). Alex Bowe made two 3s from the right corner in the first three minutes of the fourth, carving out a spot behind the Falmouth zone. The second one hit high on the corner of the backboard after being deflected by a defender, but it still found the hoop.

“The defender flying by got a piece of it,” Alex Bowe said. “I could feel it get deflected, then it nicked the glass.”

Alex Bowe had 10 points in the fourth quarter and Dickey added eight of his 10 after sitting the entire third quarter with three fouls. After Falmouth cut its deficit to three on a three-point play by Mancini, Dickey rattled off four straight to put the Capers up 49-42 with 2:50 to play. Falmouth got no closer than five the rest of the way.

“I had a bunch of energy in me because I was sitting down for a while and I just let it out whenever I’d go to the hoop,” Dickey said.

Now back to that semifinal game against Greely.

After four points in 11 seconds by Greely’s Chris Young, Cape trailed 45-42 with 56 seconds to play. Alex Bowe cut the lead to one with 28 seconds left when he somehow found a path to the hoop to make a difficult short jumper. Greely missed the front end of a 1-and-1 with 13.8 seconds to go and Lawler snared the rebound. After getting the ball over midcourt, Cape called timeout with 8.3 seconds left. Out of the timeout, the ball went to Alex Bowe, whose baseline jumper hit the front of the rim. Greely rebounded and Cape fouled immediately. Trevor Tierney missed both foul shots with 3.9 seconds left and Lawler got the rebound and the Capers immediately called timeout. On the clock 3.5 seconds remained.

What happened next will go down in tournament lore.

“Lawler threw it to a spot,” Ray said. “Dickey came and caught it. Now the kid’s got to make a play. That’s the way the game should be. It’s about the kids. They’ve got to step up and make plays. He made a helluva play. Lawler made a great pass.”

After the pig pile dissipated, Dickey had a question for Lawler.

“I asked Conor Lawler if he was throwing it to me and he said no, that he just threw it up there,” Dickey said. “Full extension, I went up for it, slow motion, off the back of the rim, in the hoop. I just exploded. I didn’t know it went in until all my teammates jumped on top of me and were all screaming. It was awesome.”

All along, Dickey was well aware of the situation and for what it allowed.

“I knew I had time for a couple dribbles, maybe a little fake,” he said. “I threw up the fake, avoided (Tierney), then just hoped it went in.”

The Capers got off to a fast start against Greely, going up 11-0 as Alex Bowe scored seven points in the game’s first five minutes. He finished with a game-high 15 points. But the Rangers (17-3) responded with a 7-0 run of their own and it was 13-7 Cape after one.

Moloney made two 3s and scored seven of his nine points in the second quarter to help the Capers stay on top, 25-23, headed into halftime. Greely took the lead early in the third and led 34-32 going into the fourth, when the advantage changed hands several times. Dickey scored six of his 11 points in the fourth. Young had eight of his team-high 14 points in the fourth for Greely.

Lawler scored eight for Cape. Tierney had 11 for Greely, and Sam Thompson added eight.

“We caught some breaks, (Greely) missed some foul shots,” Ray said. “But we moved forward. They never had that look like, ‘we can’t win.’ They had that look like, ‘we’re going to win.’ And that’s what’s so important.”

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