AUGUSTA - The Patriots. The Soviets. Mike Tyson. Bangor High School.

To hear it filtered through the madder-by-the-second basketball worshippers in this state, the Rams would belong on that list of all-time, juggernaut upset victims if they lost Friday's Eastern Class A boys' championship game to Edward Little.

Bangor survived, 61-54, and bagged its 23rd regional title at Augusta Civic Center. EL, dying to add a few more snippings of felt to the lonely state championship banner in its gym that reads '1941' and '1946,' pocketed some quarter-sized medals that its descendants will unearth in an attic somewhere, some time after they're dearly departed.

They deserved much, much better.

"It was such a great year," said EL coach Mike Adams, "and they're such great kids."

And this was an absolutely fabulous final, one that didn't raise questions about Bangor so much as answer them for all time about its splendid sparring partners from Auburn.

If this Bangor team is the greatest Maine has ever seen - and you won't get an argument from me that its starting five must at least be in the conversation - then the Red Eddies aren't getting nearly enough credit from AAU-obsessed pundits for the sky-high level at which they played from mid-December to a snowy night in February.

Four times, the Eddies took the court against Jon McAllian, Lee Suvlu, Ryan Weston, Billy Zolper and Adam Bernstein this season.

It's a fate that provoked a panic attack in literally every other team to try it. Bangor beat EL by three, 15, nine and now seven points.

Nobody else even sniffed single digits.

"If you're just looking at the win-loss column, you see it's 4-0, but if you look at the scoreboard they could have won all four of those games," said Bangor's Adam Bernstein. "I guess we just came out lucky with this one."

McAllian is headed to the University of Maine on a full basketball scholarship. Weston will be a two-sport terror at Bates. Suvlu has been heavily courted by Division II and III suitors.

Bernstein - think John Paxson, or maybe Ringo - scored 11 points Friday night. Two years ago, as a sophomore, the kid didn't even go out for basketball. He'd be the unquestioned star on most every other team in the state.

"Pick your poison with those guys," Adams said. "They're a great team. All the hype, all the press they get, it's deserved."

No doubt. But how about some love for the team whose breathtaking quickness and contagious hustle delivered the non-fatal doses of kryptonite, all season long?

EL, which features the closest thing to a five-guard starting lineup you will ever see, forced 27 turnovers in its latest staredown with the monolith.

Twenty-seven, the same number of points scored by Corey Therriault. And if the wiry junior was the offensive highlight machine, seniors Kyle Philbrook, Ben Hartnett, Eric Prue and Mukhtar Sharif were his match with their backs to the basket.

"You knew they weren't going to go away," said Weston, who scored 24 points and started the streak of six consecutive free throws that finally, mercifully if you were one of the maybe 250 Bangor fans to brave the slippery commute down Interstate-95, chased away the Red Eddies.

"Their guards are just too good. They're a great team. They play hard. They pressure. They play great defense. They put up a great fight tonight."

Sad part, in the cynical times we live, is that most of the post-game discussion assuredly will center around what Bangor didn't do, or did wrong.

That cheats both (humble apologies to Cheverus and Thornton) of the two best Class A teams in the state.

Bangor does so many things well, so effortlessly to the naked eye, that the Rams even make their B-minus game look like a thing of beauty. Memo to whichever of those Western teams survives to meet Bangor next Saturday: Do not, for the love of all that is decent and holy, leave McAllian, Suvlu, Zolper or Bernstein open enough so that you can't get a whiff of whatever they ate for a pre-game meal when the basketball is in their hands. Oh, and good luck.

And EL deserves every scintilla of credit for bringing out the ordinary in Bangor with an extraordinary effort. Down by 12 late in the third quarter, the Eddies crept as close as 56-54 with 1:10 to go.

One bucket, one possession, against a team that frightened its semifinal opponent into a stall, and one nobody else in Class A wanted to touch with a 50-foot farm implement, either.

"We've never been pushed that hard," said Bernstein.

Be proud. Be very proud.

Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. His e-mail is koakes@sunjournal.com.