JAY – Whether a trying and tragic basketball season for the Jay Tigers came to an end Friday night or not was pretty much beside the point.

Jay won’t know until the final Heal Points are released on Sunday if it forced its way into the tournament with a win over Telstar Thursday and Friday night’s 54-44 triumph over rival Livermore Falls. The Tigers do know, though, what finishing the regular season with a win means.

“When you start coaching, this is what you think about – getting a group together that can find a way and fight through everything they had to fight through,” Jay coach Edwin Thompson said. “The kids’ character – they’re just relentless.”

The Tigers (8-10) went into the week three spots out of a playoff berth, trailing the team that held down the final slot, Hall-Dale, by a little over five points in the tournament index. But they’ve had more important things on their mind since the passing of sophomore teammate Lance Allen late last month.

“We obviously had a little help from up there tonight. He’s with us. He’s been our 13th person on the bench,” Senior Rocky DeSanctis said.

Jay had more hardship to overcome Friday as leading scorer and rebounder Austin Clark was forced to watch the first half from the bench for disciplinary reasons. Clark gave the Tigers a big lift in the second half (12 points, six rebounds), but it was DeSanctis, fellow senior Nick Bourassa, Jordan DeMillo and Dylan Stafani (12 points, 12 rebounds) who kept them in the game to make Clark a factor.

“Just another bump in the road that we had to deal with,” Thompson said. “We can deal with bigger things than our starters not being on the court.”

In Clark’s absence, Livermore Falls (8-10), which had already sewn up a spot in the tourney, built a 24-10 lead early in the second quarter. But then DeSanctis (game-high 20 points) single-handedly lifted the Tigers back into the game with a personal 10-0 run.

“He has been willing us to victories the second half of the season,” Thompson said.

“I had two quick fouls and I’m a senior. This is senior night, I can’t just sit the bench with the fouls. So I realized if I just kept shooting they’d start falling,” DeSanctis said.

If the Tigers could have gotten more free throws to fall (7-for-15), they might have actually led at the half. Instead, they trailed 27-23, and Andies head coach Travis Magnusson knew his team might be in trouble.

“I thought (Clark not playing) was actually a disadvantage for us,” he said. “If they kept it close, they would feel like they won the game, and that’s exactly what happened.”

Besides DeSanctis’ heroics, Jay was able to keep the game close by having DeMillo and Bourassa harass Zach Keene, the Mountain Valley Conference’s fourth-leading scorer, all over the court. Keene finished with nine points and 13 rebounds.

“He’s a special player. We had to throw more than one guy at him, but Nick and Jordan did an awesome job on him and the team defense did a really good job,” Thompson said. “We wanted to key on him and not let him beat us tonight.”

Keene’s jumper gave the Andies their final lead of the game, 40-38, with 5:30 to go. Clark answered with a jump hook to tie it and ignite a 15-0 Jay run. The 6-foot-4 sophomore added back-to-back putbacks on DeSanctis misses and Chewy Schmidt chipped in with a steal and layup to make it 47-40 with 1:45 to go. Livermore Falls went more than five minutes without a point.

Jake Marceau led the Andies with 10 points, who shot just 24 percent from the field from the second quarter on.

“It was, intensity-wise, one of our worst efforts of the season,” Magnusson said. “But at the same time, you have to give Jay credit. They played their hearts out. That was the hardest I’ve seen them play all year long.”