By Randy Whitehouse,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – One team is headed for the playoffs, the other is headed to the weight room to try to improve for next season. It would have been tough to tell which was which judging by the reactions of both coaches after Wednesday night’s Edward Little-Lewiston season finale.

EL combined stifling second half defense, key contributions from its role players and an outstanding performance by sophomore Troy Barnies to knock off its rival. 60-50, before a big bi-partisan crowd at Lewiston High School.

“Lewiston is a real good team,” said a beaming EL coach Mike Adams after the game. “They were confident and they were playing for better position in the playoffs, but our kids are playing for pride, too.”

“We called ourselves out,” he added. “We said we’re disappointed in this year, but let’s end it on a positive note, and we did.'”

Barnies collected game highs in points (23) and rebounds (12) to lead the Red Eddies (6-12). Darin Meyers added 10 points and 11 boards, while Nate Guerette and Kyle Philbrook came up with some big 3-pointers on their way to eight points apiece.

“All we wanted to do was get one last win,” said Barnies. “Even though we expected to go further this year, I’m glad that we got that win.”

Lewiston (11-7) has now lost three straight heading into the playoffs, where they were all but assured a bye one week ago.

“We have no focus right now,” said Lewiston coach Jason Fuller, whose frustration was compounded by injuries to starting forward George Foisy and backup point guard Tyson Morgan during the course of the game.

EL held Lewiston without a field goal for more than 10 minutes in the second half. David Labonte, the Blue Devils’ leading scorer, never got into a rhythm due to foul trouble and some tough defense by Robie Leighton.

“Robie Leighton gave us a huge push,” Adams said. “There’s a kid that hasn’t started all year, who sometimes didn’t get into games at all, and he played 20 minutes tonight and guarded one of the best if not the best shooter in the conference. He did a great job defensively on him and got him into foul trouble basically because of some charges and by being aggressive offensively.”

Labonte, who averages about 19 points per game, led Lewiston with 12 points and five assists. Foisy finished with 11.

“They’re great defensively,” Fuller said of EL. “We knew that going in and we didn’t execute against it. We had things in (to combat it) but we never once ran a play (and) we couldn’t make a layup.”

Lewiston didn’t score a single field goal from the time Labonte went to the bench with his fourth foul with three minutes left in the third until the senior guard returned to the game with 3:35 left in the game and hit a 3-pointer 17 seconds later.

That pulled Lewiston within three, at 51-48, but EL answered when Guerette fed Barnies on a nice backdoor cut along the baseline for a layup to widen its lead to five with 2:21 to go. The Eddies iced it by converting 7-of-10 free throws down the stretch and limiting the Devils to 2-of-15 shooting from the field in the fourth quarter.

“All year we wanted to play good defense,” Barnies said. “We wanted to make our offense off of our defense.”

EL did that from the start, jumping out to an early 10-2 advantage. Lewiston battled back to within 19-14 at the end of the quarter, but suffered a major blow early in the second period when Morgan went down with an apparent sprained left ankle.

The Eddies missed their first eight shots of the quarter, allowing Lewiston to come back with an 8-0 run and eventually carry a two-point lead into halftime.

When Joe Stachowiak (eight points, seven rebounds) scored to make it 35-30 two minutes into the third quarter, it turned out to be Lewiston’s last field goal on the night that was not scored by Labonte.

Labonte followed Stachowiak’s bucket with two technical free throws and a trey that put the Devils up 40-30, but then he drew his fourth foul and Lewiston, with no Morgan to back Labonte up, fell apart.

Barnies scored eight points in the final 3:51 of the quarter, including a buzzer-beater at the end, to lead an 11-3 EL run that pulled the Eddies back within two. A 3-pointer by Philbrook put the Eddies up for good with 6:12 left to play.