LEWISTON — Thursday was the last Battle of the Bridge for many Edward Little and Lewiston seniors, but it was a sophomore for each team who played starring roles.

Malik Foster scored a game-high 25 points, but John Shea (23 points) and the Red Eddies left Fern Masse Court with a 67-54 victory in the Class AA North boys basketball season finale. 

“Malik was confident tonight,” Lewiston coach Ronnie Turner said. “He liked his matchup and he was letting it fly.” 

The Red Eddies (16-2) started the game on a 16-2 run in the first 3:35 of the first quarter, led by six points from Shea and five from Cam Yorke. The Blue Devils (10-8), however, answered with a 10-0 run that decreased the deficit to 18-14 by the end of the period. 

Six different Lewiston players scored, each making one basket, while five EL players found the bottom of the net. 

“Taking care of the basketball, getting shots that we wanted in the first four or five minutes, and then turnovers,” Edward Little coach Mike Adams said. “And our turnovers led to their offense, and once they got easy offense, then they started hitting some shots.”

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Lewiston’s David Omasombo, who missed his first two 3-point attempts, made his second in front of the EL bench one minute into the second quarter to give the Blue Devils their first lead at 19-18. A layup by Foster stretched it to 21-18, but the Red Eddies regained the lead through layups by Shea and Storm Jipson.

“We did (believe we could come back) because when we played Portland we were down by like 15 in the third quarter and came back and won, so I thought that we could come back and win,” Lewiston senior Evan Williams said. 

Williams gave Lewiston the lead back, but Max Creaser joined EL’s scoring to make it 24-23 Red Eddies, and the visitors stretched their advantage a bit before the Blue Devils clawed back to tie it, 29-29, on Foster’s layup with 11 seconds left before halftime. 

“It’s a new game,” Adams said. “As good as we played at the start, and then as bad as we played at the end (of the first half), it was fresh. Our guys, they had a look on their faces of disappointment, which I get because they knew they didn’t play very well.” 

The Red Eddies took back their earlier stranglehold of the game by opening the second half on a 9-0 run, which was stopped by Williams’ layup 2:19 into the third. Shea started the run with a long jumper, and finished EL’s spurt with a layup. 

“We just told our kids to defend in the third quarter,” Turner said. “So all our energy is just on the defensive end, and I tell them all the time, ‘When we defend, we have a chance.’ When we stop defending it’s really hard because so many things have to go right for us if we don’t defend.

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“What I didn’t like was our defensive energy, our defensive intensity really wasn’t there in the third. You know, usually our defense helps our offense, and the third quarter especially we kind of got away from that, and that was really the difference in the third quarter.” 

Lewiston got within five points, 44-39, but RJ Nichols’ 3 with six seconds left in the third gave Edward Little a 49-39 lead heading into the fourth. 

The Blue Devils got as close as eight in the fourth, but couldn’t make a run like they did in the first half. 

“They have some really good shooters, and if you let them get going … end of the first half, that’s exactly what will happen. So in the second half we did a better job of stopping their runs, and answering their runs,” Adams said. 

Shea scored seven of his 23 in the fourth, while Creaser made 6 of 8 free throws to finish with 15 points. 

Foster had 10 in the fourth. Williams scored 10 for the game. 


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