“It’s a huge win,”  Edward Little senior guard C.J. Jipson said, “But we know we’ve got Deering coming up, then Brunswick, and then Cheverus and Portland here. So it’s a tough next two weeks before Christmas. It’s going to be a good challenge.”

Scoring points against Edward Little’s defense is always challenging, perhaps this year more than most. 

Yet Oxford Hills battled back from a 10-point deficit late in the third quarter and  still had two shots at beating the Red Eddies in the final second. Neither found the bottom of the net, however, and EL held on for a 54-52 win. 

Samatar Iman led the Red Eddies (2-0) with 19 points, five rebounds and a crucial steal down the stretch. Jarod Norcross Plourde added 10 points and five rebounds. Matt Fleming led the Vikings (1-1) with 20 points, while Cole Verrier and Atreyu Keniston added 12 points apiece.

The Vikings’ had a chance to tie or win after EL’s Tyler Morin missed the front end of a one-and-one and the rebound went off an Eddie with six seconds left.

Forced to go the length of the court after a time out, the Vikings had to settle for a 30-foot heave from Chris St. Pierre, which fell well short. But EL rebounder Wol Maiwen’s momentum carried  him out of bounds just before the buzzer sounded.

After a conference, officials put one second back on the clock, giving the Vikings one play from under their own basket. They got it in to Fleming on the left wing, who had a good look at the 3-pointer, but only drew iron as the final horn sounded.

“The fact that we got back into it with a chance to win at the end is a testament to how tough our kids are,” Oxford Hills coach Scott Graffam said. “We got the ball in the right person’s hand at the end. I’ve been coaching 35 years and I’ve never been prouder of a team, with the way they reacted in a hostile environment.”

“The kids did a good job adjusting and responding as the game went along. We knew that was going to be a battle. It always is,” EL coach Mike Adams said. “Oxford Hills is good and nobody’s talking about them, which makes them even more dangerous.”

Edward Little was the more dangerous team coming out of a 28-28 halftime tie as Norcross Plourde, Iman and Maiwen (six points, five rebounds, four steals, four blocks off the bench) led a 14-4 run.

Maiwen’s dunk off a Darby Shea steal sent the partisan crowd into a frenzy and gave the Eddies their biggest lead at 42-32.

Oxford Hills cut that deficit in half over the next couple of minutes but still faced an eight-point margin when Shea beat the buzzer with a 3-pointer from the corner to make it 45-37.

Fleming’s scoop shot got the Vikings back within two midway through the fourth. EL pushed the lead back up to six with inside hoops by Maiwen and Norcross Plourde. 

Free throws by Verrier cut the cushion to four with three minutes left. The Vikings had a couple of chances to make it a one-possession game but turned it over both times.

Two free throws by Fleming finally made it a three-point game again with 1:21 left. After an Eddies’ miss, Iman kept them from getting any closer with a perfect pocket pick and converted at the other end to make it 54-49.

“He was active for us,” Adams said of Iman. “Sometimes he tries to create a little too much and doesn’t let the game come to him but I thought he did a much better job tonight. We told him ‘You’ve got to defend and you’ve got to rebound. Don’t try to go out and create offense too much. Just read and do what you do.’ And he defended and rebounded today.”

“Our offense is a work in progress. They upped their intensity level in the third quarter and our offense didn’t react, so we were fighting from behind the whole second half,” Graffam said. “Every time we’d cut it to five we’d turn it over or cut it to three and we’d turn it over.”

St. Pierre gave the Vikings another life with a three-point play that made it 54-52 with 9.7 seconds left.