AUGUSTA – Jay High School will have to run the craziest obstacle course in recent memory if it wants to continue the Mountain Valley Conference’s mind-boggling streak of Western Class C girls’ basketball championships.

Then again, the Tigers won’t see anybody in that bracket better than Mountain Valley, and they handled the Falcons just fine, thank you very much, on Monday night.

Jay stormed to a double-digit lead in the first half and weathered the expected rally by sinking its free throws late, avenging a loss one week ago with a 45-41 triumph in the MVC championship game at Augusta Civic Center.

“It’s great, especially because it’s Mountain Valley,” said Jay senior forward and league player of the year Liz LeBlanc, who scored a game-high 19 points. “It’s a game we wanted to win, but it’s not the game we had to win.”

No, that comes tonight, when No. 2 Jay (15-4) hosts North Yarmouth Academy in a Western Class C preliminary game. Top-seeded Waynflete is the only team in the tournament that won’t encounter a play-in game.

On the heels of a nightmarish 2007-08 season, one that saw LeBlanc lost with a back injury and ended with an overtime loss to Mt. Abram in the prelim, the Tigers gladly will take the busy itinerary.

“I told them after some of the things they’ve gone through the past couple of years that high school kids shouldn’t even have to deal with, playing back-to-back nights isn’t so tough.” said Jay coach Chris Bessey. “And they are tough. I’ve questioned their toughness all year, to the point where they probably got sick of hearing me talk about it, but they proved tonight how tough they are.”

Hillary Deane added 10 points for the Tigers, who also clipped the Falcons in their first meeting this season. Meagan Maifeld led Mountain Valley with 13 points and six rebounds. Vanessa Cayer added 12 points and Lauren Lepage 10 for the Falcons, who are No. 3 in Western Class B and will meet Gray-New Gloucester in the quarterfinals at 2 p.m. Tuesday in Portland.

Jay met Mountain Valley’s 5-0 run to start the game with nine unanswered points. That was the beginning of an 18-2 eruption that led to a 26-15 halftime advantage.

Mountain Valley (15-4) veered away from its typical man-to-man defensive approach and attacked LeBlanc and Deane with a triangle-and-two scheme.

The Tigers responded with hot shooting, aggressive rebounding and crisp transition. Of the eight players who took the court for Jay in the first quarter, six scored. Mallory Bonnevie (seven assists, thres steals), Beth Moore, Kelsea Beisaw and Gina Nemi also delivered big buckets.

“It’s something we hadn’t tried all year,” Mountain Valley coach Rich Allen said of the hybrid defense. “I thought we did pretty well with it, but we didn’t box out like we needed to.”

In addition to forcing only five turnovers in the first half, the Falcons couldn’t generate much in the offensive end, hitting only 4-of-17 from the field.

“We took away their drives and the things they like to do,” LeBlanc said.

Three-pointers fueled the Falcons’ flurry in the second half. Maifeld and Cayer combined for three strikes from beyond the arc in the fourth quarter, with Cayer’s bomb bringing the Falcons within one, 37-36, at the 4:31 mark.

Already benefiting from the double bonus, however, Jay patiently worked the ball inside to Deane for a pair. Betsy Gemelli knocked down two free throws on the next possession to make it a five-point lead.

Cayer’s short jumper in the paint trimmed it to three with 3:08 left. After a lengthy dry spell by both teams, LeBlanc dropped a pair from the line with 42 seconds remaining to chase away the Falcons.

“That was nice, especially if you’ve seen us play during the year the way we sometimes shoot free throws,” Bessey said. “It cost us a couple of games.”

Jay prevailed despite attempting only eight field goals in the entire second half, in part because they took advantage of a 13-3 foul disparity to go 11-of-16 from the stripe.

“We battled back, but you just can’t dig a hole like that against good teams,” Allen said.