LEWISTON – The Bates student section put a near-capacity crowd at Alumni Gymnasium into a festive mood by singing holiday songs during breaks in the action of Saturday night’s home-opener with rival Bowdoin. But it wasn’t a truly merry occasion for the Bobcat faithful until two seconds remained on the clock.

Baskets by Brian Ellis and Bryan Wholey ended a see-saw second half and Bates held on in the closing seconds to pull out a 66-65 win, their second one-point win in five nights.

“We graduated some great players last year, so the best thing to take away from this is that we have young guys that stepped up,” said Bates coach Joe Reilly, who had three sophomores and two freshmen on the floor for more than 12 minutes. “I think now we know we can win, because Bowdoin’s a great team in our league. So I’m hoping that we just play with more confidence now.”

Ellis tallied a game-high 22 points and eight rebounds, while Wholey added 11 points and Chris Wilson 10 points for the Bobcats (2-3). Andrew Hippert paced Bowdoin (4-2) with 20 points while Jordan Fliegel added 13 points and eight boards.

With a couple of Bowdoin defenders hanging all over him, Ellis broke a 62-62 tie, the fifth of the second half, with a short jumper to give Bates the lead for good with 3:15 left.

“It was a good thing it went in, because practice tomorrow would have been bad,” Ellis said. “That’s not really the shot coach is looking for in that situation.”

Wholey, who led the Bobcats to their first win of the season against Endicott last Tuesday with a floater with one second remaining, made it a four-point cushion with 1:04 to go by collecting a loose rebound in the lane and draining a runner.

Hippert pulled the Polar Bears back within one on a 3-pointer from the top of the key with 45 seconds to go.

Bowdoin had a chance to win the game after rebounding a Pat Halloran air ball on Bates’ ensuing possession. Point guard Mike Hauser pushed the ball up the floor and had a cutting Fliegel set up for a layup, but the 6-6 senior couldn’t handle the bounce pass cleanly until he and/or the ball touched the baseline, giving the Bobcats the ball back with two seconds left.

“Our point guard did a nice job of recognizing the situation. We had a play called but then he saw there wasn’t enough time, so he looked up, penetrated nicely and made a nice pass,” said Bowdoin coach Tim Gilbride. “If the catch had been clean, I think we would have had a layup. It was that close, as a one-point game would be.”

Turnovers often make the difference in close games, too, and the Bobcats turned it over just four times all night compared to Bowdoin’s 11. The Bobcats held a 14-2 edge in points off of turnovers.

“We’ve been working on that a lot in practice,” said Ellis, a freshman swingman. “Coach has really been working us hard with that. Four turnovers is awesome. Hopefully, we can keep that up. Maybe we’ll get none next time.”

Bowdoin jumped out, 12-3, to start the game and led for much of the first half by completely shutting down the paint. Bates’ first 18 points, and 21 of its first 23, came from the perimeter.

Halloran made the Bobcats’ first serious foray into the lane midway through the first half only to have his shot rejected by Fliegel.

“Bowdoin is a great team. They’re experienced, they have a lot of seniors and they’re big,” Reilly said. “We were trying to get it down low, but they were fighting our interior guys for position.”

Fortunately for the Bobcats, Ellis and Wilson combined to make four 3-pointers in a row to get them back within one. The Bobcats later turned the tables and closed off the paint to the Bears to go on an 11-4 run that led to their first lead on a Sean Wirth leaner that made it 29-27 with 3:05 left. Bates led by one at halftime.

“They were very physical around the basket. I thought that hurt us a little bit,” Gilbride said. “We either got accustomed to that or just handled it better (in the second half).”