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Central Maine boys basketball teams have been competing for state championships for more than 100 years. What happened over the weekend was a first.

Never before had three central Maine boys teams claimed state titles in the same season. That changed with Gardiner taking the Class B championship Friday night, and Monmouth Academy (Class D) and Valley (Class S) both winning on Saturday.

“It’s pretty cool,” said Valley coach Mike Staples. “It’s really nice to have that for our area. We played Gardiner over the summer and Monmouth (in the regular season), and they did a great job. It’s a great thing for all three of us.”

Getting to the finish line wasn’t easy for any of the three teams. For Gardiner, it was the result of a long building process. Valley finally got over the hump. Monmouth needed to navigate a rough start caused by injuries.

Gardiner had never won a state title before this season and had gone 13 years without a regional quarterfinal victory. The seniors were 16-39, having gone 3-15 in 2022-23 and 4-14 in 2023-24. As a new addition to Class B, the Tigers also had never played on the Cross Insurance Center floor.

Yet after returning the bulk of a group that jumped from four wins in 2023-24 to nine last season, Gardiner felt it was primed for another step forward. The Tigers went 15-3 in the regular season, then breezed through a strong North regional field before capping their run with a 58-54 win over Yarmouth in the state final.

“We just dug deep,” said Gardiner junior Isaac Marquis. “We knew our past wasn’t that good, but we knew we had the talent to do it, and we all just trusted each other. … We knew we hadn’t won anything coming into the season, so that just made us work harder.”

Unlike Gardiner, the Valley boys entered the season with plenty of recent tourney wins, as well as a trophy case with seven Gold Balls. Yet for all of the Cavaliers’ success at the Augusta Civic Center in February, their current crop of players had fallen just short of the biggest prize.

On Saturday, that changed. Led by the two highest-scoring players in program history, seniors Harry Louis and Fisher Tewksbury, Valley broke through to win Gold Ball No. 8 emphatically in the form of a 77-46 Class S victory over Easton.

Three days after the win, Valley coach Mike Staples was still emotional as he reflected on the careers of Louis and Tewksbury. Both joined the varsity team as eighth-graders in 2021-22 when Valley was at its lowest, making their journey to the top along with fellow senior Collin Nichols all the sweeter.

“When they came in, everybody looked at them as the saviors,” Staples said. “That pressure was a lot for eighth-, ninth- and 10th-graders to deal with, and there were a lot of tears and a lot of emotional moments, so that (win Saturday) was the fulfillment of it. This was the year that it all came together.”

Valley’s 20 wins were the most of any boys team in central Maine this winter. One of the Cavaliers’ two losses was on Dec. 31 against Monmouth — not at all a bad loss considering the Mustangs, coached by Valley alum Wade Morrill, won a state title of their own state later Saturday by beating Machias, 51-41, in Class D.

With much returning from a team that played in a fourth consecutive regional final in 2025, Monmouth entered the 2025-26 season as a favorite in Class D South. Yet the first half of the season was tough for the injury-plagued Mustangs, who started 6-5.

Monmouth began the season without starters Aiden Oliveira and Jacob Harmon, and Morrill said the team was missing at least one key player for more than half of its practices. The Mustangs persevered, though, and finished the season on an 11-game winning streak.

“It’s a very vindicating win, with all the hard work and adversity you’ve faced throughout a long basketball season, to be the last team standing,” said Morrill, whose team claimed its second state title in three years. “It feels sweet, and it never gets old.”