LEWISTON – Lewiston High School reveled in moral victories last winter. Now, it has a signature boys’ basketball win.

Twice thumped by nemesis Edward Little during a three-win winter of discontent one season ago, the older, wiser Blue Devils didn’t allow a field goal in the final 2:48 and rallied to a 62-53 triumph Tuesday night.

The win is Lewiston’s first over EL since 2006 and a rarity in the riverside series this decade. Both teams are 2-2, with Lewiston riding its first KVAC winning streak in recent memory.

“This is the best I’ve felt about basketball the last two years,” said junior guard Jarrid Palmer, who finished with 16 points and four steals.

Palmer cashed in a feed from Dominique Bailey for a traditional 3-point play that gave Lewiston its initial lead of the second half with 5:17 remaining.

He also drained a pair of free throws during the Blue Devils’ 11-1 finishing kick, but he wasn’t alone. In the always entertaining battle of student section chants, it was the Lewiston faithful’s rhythmic chorus of “Eddie!” drowning out the diminished EL cry of “Eddies!”

Senior forward Eddie West saved 17 of his game-high 23 points for the second half, punctuated by eight in the fourth quarter.

“We were selfish offensively and made no adjustments defensively,” said EL coach Mike Adams, “and Eddie West absolutely killed us.”

West also delivered a fateful hoop-and-freebie combination with 1:45 left in the game. Eric Prue became the second EL starting guard to foul out in that exchange, joining Kyle Philbrook on the bench.

Those heroics gave the Devils a four-point lead, moments after Ronnie Turner’s two free throws put the Eddies on the short end to stay.

“You just don’t know how much this means,” West said. “This is the best we’ve played together as a team in two years, by far. We remembered them wearing their ’18-0 KVAC Championship’ T-shirts before they even came into our gym for the last game of the regular season last year. That lit our fire.”

Six different players scored at least two points in the final period for Lewiston, which led Cony and Mt. Ararat in the fourth quarter of opening-week losses before breaking through against Morse last Friday.

Lewiston trimmed its staggering total of 17 turnovers in the first half to four after intermission. The Devils also shot a steady 14-of-18 from the free-throw line.

“We had a really tough year last year, and it’s a lot of the same kids with a couple of additions,” said Lewiston coach Pat Blais. “We were up against Cony. We were up against Mt. Ararat. The kids know how important it is to keep their composure.”

Corey Therriault topped Edward Little with 13 points, five rebounds and five assists. Philbrook added 12 points and Mukhtar Sharif 11 for the Eddies, who led by seven points in the second quarter, five late in the fourth and four with 5:57 to play.

Philbrook left the game less than 90 seconds into the second half and sat out the balance of the third quarter after acquiring an offensive foul and a piggyback technical, giving him his third and fourth personals.

His return didn’t last long, thanks to an attempt to draw a charge against Palmer that went awry.

“The toughest call in basketball is the blocking foul. It went our away against Brunswick, and I guess it didn’t tonight,” Adams said. “(The officiating) isn’t why we lost the game. We lost because we went 3-for-10 from the floor in the fourth quarter and couldn’t make free throws.”

Lewiston, meanwhile, produced a parade of heroes. Wesley Myers scored down low with 3:11 left to notch the second lead change of the final stanza.

Turner’s free throws answered a Sean Daigle basket that turned out to be EL’s last field goal of the evening. And following West’s 3-point play, a Palmer steal led to an insurance free throw by Alf Brooks.

“Our motto this year is, ‘We, not me.’ Everybody played well tonight,” West said. “You can’t say it was any one person.”