AUBURN — Unbeaten Edward Little dominated the paint and the glass while building a 10-point lead in the first half of Saturday night’s KVAC clash with Bangor.

The Rams had the perfect antidote for the second half, a 2-3 zone. But the Red Eddies found the antidotes to the antidote, namely Lew Jensen and Quin Leary, just in time, to hang on for a 52-50 win.

Jensen led the Eddies with 13 points off the bench, including three zone-busting 3-pointers in the second half. Leary hit what proved to be the game-winning jumper with 52 seconds left.

EL’s defense then forced Bangor to burn two timeouts before leaving Alex Campbell to settle for an off-balance deep jumper that fell short as time expired.

Sean Ford had 13 points and 11 rebounds for the Eddies (6-0), including a half-dozen offensive boards. Jensen also collected six offensive rebounds among his eight. Quin Leary added 12 points, nine rebounds and three steals. Sean Tocci led Bangor (4-2) with 18 points, while Campbell added 15 points, five assists and four steals.

EL took its biggest lead, 38-23, early in the third period. But Tocci and Campbell started to heat up from the outside and the Eddies started getting impatient against Bangor’s zone. The Rams pulled within 42-35 heading into the fourth.

“We haven’t really seen zone much this year,” Ford said. “They played a very good zone, probably one of the best we’ll see all year. That really disrupted us.”

“(The zone) was out of desperation. Edward Little was playing so well,” first-year Bangor coach Ed Kohtala said. “It’s kind of a mismatch game. Physically and positionally we didn’t match up great with them, and I don’t think they matched up great with us. Some of the cross matches definitely were in their favor.”

Bangor needed less than a minute in the fourth to pull within two, courtesy a Liam Harrigan trey and a Tocci layup off a Campbell steal.

The two teams then started trading 3-pointers, with Campbell and Tocci answering Jensen bombs before Harrigan hit a jumper inside the arc to get the Rams within one, 50-49, with 2:42 to go.

“We settled for shots really early, and Bangor zoned us really well,” EL coach Mike Adams said. “We pulled the ball out and made them come out and play us more. We should have done that earlier.”

Bangor’s Conner Adams hit one of two at the free-throw line to tie the game with 1:22 remaining. Thirty seconds later, Leary scored the game’s last points from just inside the right elbow.

“People will look and see that he scored 12 points. They don’t see everything else that he does throughout the whole game, from playing great defense to taking charges to grabbing 10 or 12 rebounds” EL coach Mike Adams said.

Leary and Ford controlled the paint in the first quarter, combining for 15 of the Eddies’ 18 points in the period. EL opened with a 9-1 advantage on the offensive glass (22-10 overall) and inflated its lead to 30-20 at intermission thanks to back-to-back putbacks by Jensen.

“We wanted to attack the offensive glass. It was big because we got, especially in that first half, a lot of second-chance points,” Jensen said.