JAY – Livermore Falls could get used to this.

As athletics in these proud, neighboring, riverside communities go, life doesn’t get much better than winning a game that punches your ticket to the playoffs and pays your rival’s cab fare home.

The Andies have accomplished that during this school year in both football and now, most likely, boys’ basketball after Saturday night’s 76-53 trouncing of Jay in the invigorating din of the Tigerdome.

Livermore Falls (8-9) sewed up a Western Class C postseason berth, and its Mountain Valley Conference season sweep of Jay book-ended that charge in the wake of an 0-4 start. Jay (7-9) will need to upset Mountain Valley at home Tuesday to end its playoff drought.

“Beating your rival twice is always probably the best thing you can do all year,” said Livermore Falls coach Travis Magnusson. “With this crowd, beating them twice, yeah, it gets us to the playoffs, but we beat them twice. We’ll have that the whole summer long.”

Those bragging rights are embellished, no doubt, by how the Andies pulled it off. Down eight with 1:34 remaining in the third quarter, Livermore Falls finished the game with a staggering 36-5 flourish.

Jay gave up the final 23 points after Dylan Stefani’s 3-pointer pulled the Tigers even at 53 with 5:20 to go. Kyle Storer already had fouled out, however, and Jordan DeMillo joined him on the bench with 4:41 remaining.

“We got in foul trouble and had to go to the bench, and that hurt us. I thought for three quarters it was a pretty nice high school ball game,” said Jay coach Steve Hamilton. “All the credit goes to Livermore. They played a great game. After we lost those starters, there ain’t much there.”

Chandler White scored 16 of his 20 points in the second half for Livermore Falls and supplemented his scoring with five assists.

Derek Castonguay added 14 points and Tom Ventrella 13. That duo also combined for 15 rebounds and helped limit Jay to one offensive board in the second half.

“They were paying tough defense in the first half. We thought we were forcing bad shots, but they were making everything. We thought we were lucky to be down by eight.,” Ventrella said. “We just pushed the ball and played defense, and we were lucky to come back.”

Stefani led all scorers with 21 points for Jay. Only two other Tigers, DeMillo and freshman sixth man Zach Bonnevie, scored in the second half.

Livermore Falls answered Jay’s sweltering 62 percent shooting clip in the first half by turning to its “toughener” defensive stance.

“It’s man-to-man defense like Duke plays. Do not let your man catch the basketball,” Magnusson said. “That’s what we went to in the second half. Have some heart and don’t let your man go by you.”

Jay cooled to 5-for-11 from the field in the third quarter and bottomed out at 2-of-13 in the fourth, when Livermore Falls repeatedly slashed to the hoop and hit all but one of its 10 field goal tries.

Khyle Whittemore held Jay’s Kyle DeMillo scoreless in the second half. The Tigers’ senior co-captain chalked up 10 points before the break.

“They’re quick. White’s quick. Whittemore’s quick. It’s a hard match-up,” Hamilton said.

Whenever the Andies needed a big shot, White obliged. The junior nailed two 3-pointers in the final 2:24 of the third quarter to trim Jay’s lead to 48-45. Nate Michaud’s lone trey of the night tied it early in the fourth.

White put Livermore Falls ahead twice thereafter, including another triple that landed the lead for keeps with 4:58 left.

Ryan Ames, the Andies’ lone senior, added nine points. Whittemore supplied eight. The Andies enjoyed an 18-2 scoring edge at the foul line.

Jay was 4-0 with Livermore Falls on the flip side when the Andies rallied for a December victory in its half of the home-and-home series.

“They were saying they were going to beat us, and we were winless at the time, so that was a big win for us,” Ames said. “We needed that one, and we knew we needed this one for our playoff hopes.”

Bonnevie provided nine points for Jay, which led 21-10 after one quarter and 38-30 at halftime.