By Randy Whitehouse,Staff Writer

AUBURN – Edward Little senior Ryan Goss was so hot Thursday night, he could have called all of his shots. That meant the only thing the Lewiston Blue Devils could do was pick their poison.

Goss drilled eight 3-pointers and teamed up with Troy Barnies (27 points, 16 rebounds, five blocks) to devastate Lewiston outside and inside in Edward Little’s 73-53 win.

The Red Eddies (14-4) swept the season series between the two rivals and finished the regular season with 11 straight wins. They’ll host an Eastern A prelim game Wednesday. The Blue Devils (9-9) will be on the road for their prelim.

“It’s definitely a night I’m never going to forget,” Goss said. “I didn’t come into the game expecting to hit eight 3-pointers, but my teammates set great screens for me. They got me wide open. I just was unconscious tonight. I couldn’t believe it.”

Neither could the student section packing the Edward Little High School gymnasium, which serenaded Goss with chants of “MVP” as he exited the game late in the fourth quarter. To their delight, Goss walked away with the Gordon “John” Gillette award as the game’s most valuable player.

“Ryan’s been shooting the ball better as we’ve gone along and gaining confidence,” said EL coach Mike Adams. “We expected him to be like that at the beginning of this year because he was at the end of last year. So it’s nice to have that back. We just keep adding weapons as the year goes along.”

Lewiston has its share of weapons, too, but they were firing little more than blanks in a first half in which they shot barely 10 percent from the field.

Trailing 19-9 after one, the Blue Devils shot 0-for-18 from the floor in the second quarter. Credit good defense by EL, of course, but Lewiston missed a number of lay-ups, too. They fared only slightly better from the free throw line (4-for-10) and were staring at a 28-13 deficit at halftime.

“There is nothing to say tonight except the kids that I have played as hard as they absolutely could,” Lewiston coach Pat Blais said. “They came in here, where it’s not an easy place to play, and the worked as hard as they could.”

The Devils came out aggressively to start the second half, led by Jared Turcotte (21 points, 12 rebounds) and Joe Stachowiak (15 points) and trimmed the deficit to 30-19 a little more than two minutes in.

That’s when Goss and Barnies started to take the game over. The pair combined for all of EL’s points in a 19-0 run that put the game away.

Goss got it started with a pair of threes sandwiched around a Barnies putback. Barnies added three free throws and a short jumper that circled around the rim twice before going in. Then Barnies decided it was time to get Goss involved again and found him for back-to-back 3-pointers from the right side of the arc that made it 49-19.

“You’ve got probably the best player in the league taking the ball to the basket and you’ve got to worry about getting two guys on him, and that means you’re leaving a shooter who, I’m not sure if he missed tonight,” Blais said. “It becomes just about impossible to defend.”

Turcotte finally ended the run with a layup with under a minute left in the quarter, but the damage had been done.

“He had, like, three 3-pointers in a row and we had to get him the ball,” Barnies said. “Ryan’s been stepping up all season long, and that helps spread the defense.”

“That inside-outside game not only helps me, it helps Troy,” said Goss. “If he can kick it back out to me and get the defenses running out at me, I can hit it right back into him and he’ll score two points every time.”

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