CAPE ELIZABETH – Wednesday night’s Western B preliminary between No. 9 Poland and No. 8 Cape Elizabeth wasn’t exactly a tutorial in good shot selection.

As it turned out, neither team needed to be so concerned with the quality of the shots as the quantity.

Cape took better care of the basketball than Poland and dominated the offensive boards on its way to a 49-31 edge in field goal attempts. Despite shooting just 31 percent for the game, the 18 extra attempts proved to be the difference in the Capers’ 38-36 victory.

Cape Elizabeth (7-12) will face top-seeded Falmouth in the quarterfinals Saturday night.

Jon Lecznar led the Knights (8-11) with nine points and nine rebounds, while Josh Pomerleau chipped in with eight points off the bench.

Joe Geoghegan led Cape with 12 points and 10 rebounds, while Liam O’Shea added nine points and seven boards. The two sophomores combined for eight of the Capers’ 14 offensive rebounds, compared to just three second chances for the Knights.

“That was a pretty good effort for us on the offensive boards because we’re not real big,” said Cape coach Jim Ray. “Joe Geoghegan’s done a real nice job around the glass. He gets to a lot of balls around the basket.”

“Right now, we don’t have a lot of depth inside. When we sub, we get a lot smaller,” said Poland coach J.P. Yorkey, whose team lost to Cape last Saturday, 64-46. “Other than (Cape point guard Matty) Reid, the rest of their kids are 6-2 and above, so it does present a challenge for us keeping them off the offensive boards.”

Both teams tried to establish themselves inside in the early stages, with Cape getting the initial edge for a 12-6 lead. The Knights didn’t deviate from their game plan, however, and continued pounding the ball into Lecznar, who made back-to-back hoops to tie the game at 16 before a buzzer-beater by Geoghegan gave the Capers a two-point edge going into halftime.

Cape slowly expanded the lead to double digits in the third. Putbacks by O’Shea and Geoghegan and back-to-back hoops by Pat Doherty made it 26-16 midway through the quarter. Poland hung in despite going pointless until Pomerleau’s runner with 1:55 left in the quarter. That sparked an 8-0 run to end the period that pulled the Knights within a bucket.

“I thought we played much better defensively tonight than we did on Saturday night,” Yorkey said. “We didn’t have our best game offensively. We came out of the gate a little nervous and turned the ball over. It was our first playoff game, and it showed.”

A Kyle Purington basket tied the game for the last time at 28 about two minutes into the fourth quarter. Cape’s Marques Barrett then hit the game’s only 3-pointer to give his team the lead for good with 5:45 to go.

Barrett continued to haunt the Knights for the rest of the game. His steal and layup with 1:09 left made it a six-point game, then, after Poland cut the lead back to four on a Purington hoop, Barrett broke the Knights’ press and fed an open O’Shea under the basket for what turned out to be a three-point play to make it 38-31.

“He made a couple of big plays tonight, the big three and that big steal and a nice pass to O’Shea on that play,” Ray said. “A lot of guys stepped it up tonight.”

A Pomerleau layup and an Eric Piper trey with five seconds left pulled the Knights within two, but Poland couldn’t foul to stop the clock before the final buzzer sounded.

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