AUGUSTA — It wasn’t exactly the way Madison drew it up, but the Bulldogs will surely take it. 

Kayla Bess found a wide-open Emily Oliver on the left block and the junior forward beat the buzzer to send the 10th-seeded Bulldogs to the Western Class C semifinals over No. 2 seed Boothbay, 43-41, at the Augusta Civic Center on Tuesday. Madison will play Dirigo in the next round. 

“I wasn’t actually supposed to be there, but I was so I threw my hands up and got the ball and put it in,” Oliver said. 

Oliver finished with four points. 

Oliver said the original game plan with 9.2 seconds left was to send the ball down to the other post. If a shot wasn’t available, the ball would come out to Bess for a last-second 3-pointer. Regardless, Madison’s final play worked to perfection. 

“We wanted to push it inside and we got everybody to the right side of the floor and it was wide open,” Madison coach Albert Veneziano said. “We did a great job of getting the ball there.” 

Moments prior, the Bulldogs (11-9) were hoping just to get to overtime. After a 3-point play by Bess tied the game at 41 with 40 seconds left, the Seahawks planned to hold for the final shot. Boothbay (17-2) called a timeout with 14 seconds left to draw up a play, but the Seahawks carried the ball on the ensuing inbounds and turned it over. 

“You can’t foul them and you have to play good defense,” Veneziano said. “You can’t allow them to go to the foul line and beat you. If they beat you with a 3-pointer or they beat you with a good shot, just like that right there, they beat you and that’s the way it is.” 

Bess had seven straight points for Madison before Oliver’s game-winning basket. Consecutive baskets by Bess gave the Bulldogs a 38-35 lead with 2:15 left. Boothbay would rally to grab a 41-38 advantage with 1:01 remaining before Bess tied it with her 3-point play.  Bess finished with a team-high 14 points. 

“She came up big for us all year,” Veneziano said of Bess. “She works hard and she does good things for us. She has a real competitive streak in her.” 

The Bulldogs led for the first 21:33 of the game before Boothbay’s Morgan Crocker to over late in the third quarter. Crocker scored nine unanswered, her final points of the quarter giving the Seahawks a 28-26 lead with 2:11 left. 

The Seahawks led 32-28 after three quarters. Crocker and Page Brown accounted for 21 of Boothbay’s 25 second-half points. Crocker finished with a game-high 23 points, while Brown had 12. 

Madison led by as many as seven, holding leads of 12-5 and 26-19. The Bulldogs led 17-15 at halftime. 

All five Madison starters finished with a least four points. 

“These kids have really come a long way in the last couple weeks,” Veneziano said. “They’ve really matured a lot and I think we’re playing pretty good right now.” 

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