AUGUSTA — Dirigo just missed being perfect during the 2011-12 regular season, but it didn’t miss in the biggest quarter of the season.

The Cougars made all seven of their shots and played suffocating defense in the fourth quarter to pull away from Lee Academy, 74-67, to win their first Class C state title in 29 years at the Augusta Civic Center Saturday night.

Cody St. Germain led the Cougars (21-1) with a game-high 26 points and seven rebounds. Ben Holmes scored 13 of his 18 points in the second half, while Josh Turbide and Caleb Turner (five assists) added nine points apiece.

Boubacar Diallo paced the Pandas  (19-3) with 19 points and 13 rebounds. Jasil Elder finished with 16 points and D.J. Johnson chipped in with 12 points, three assists and three steals.

Dirigo’s win breaks a string of three straight championship game losses, including last year’s defeat to Lee, who the Cougars made no secret of wanting to face again.

“We wanted them,” St. Germain said. “We wanted them over anybody else. The whole time (during the Eastern C tournament) we were cheering for Lee because we wanted another shot at them.”

The game was tied at the end of each of the first three quarters. The Cougars pulled away with a 10-2 run in the final 3:40.  Free throws by Frost and Turbide and St. Germain’s last field goal with a minute left sealed the deal.

“Boy, we made some tough, tough shots tonight,” said Dirigo coach Travis Magnusson, who led the Cougars to the Gold Ball in his first year at the helm. “That’s the best I’ve seen Lee shoot the ball, too. It took our ‘A’ game to win this one for sure.”

“It’s a pretty simple formula,” Lee coach Randy Harris said. “It got down to an eight-minute game, they got three or four stops in a row and we didn’t. Holmes got two or three hoops and that’s your ballgame right there.”

Both teams started at the anticipated breakneck pace in a first quarter that saw seven lead changes and one tie, the 19-19 knot at the end of the period.

Dirigo conducted the night’s first significant run with six straight points coming from a St. Germain turnaround off the glass, a fast break layup by Turner (seven assists) off a perfectly-threaded pass by Frost and Turner’s drive that gave the Cougars the largest lead of the half, 36-27, with 2:09 remaining.

Elder went off before the intermission to push the Pandas even, following up a hoop and a 3-pointer with a nice feed to Brad Kong to make it 39-39.

The Cougars shot 52 percent from the floor in the first half. The Pandas topped that with a blistering 67 percent, but eight more turnovers helped cancel out that advantage.

Both teams got back on the see-saw to start the second half before the Pandas made their first attempt to break away. Diallo’s 3-pointer gave them their largest lead of the night at 49-44, and when they hit the bonus late in the third, it appeared they might sustain the lead until Hunter Ross’ buzzer-beating 3-pointer from the left corner tied it again at 53-53 at the end of three.

“For a guy that’s never made a 3-pointer in his career, he probably made the biggest one in Dirigo history,” Magnusson said. “I almost wanted to lift him up to the ceiling.”

“That is the first one I’ve made all year. We were running a stall to get Turbide a 3,” Ross said. “Turbide decided to pass it with, like, one second left and I just released it as high as I could. It went in and I was beyond shocked.”

Lee retook the lead three times early in the fourth quarter, only to see the Cougars even it back up. St. Germain tied it for the last  time by making one of two at the line. Holmes rebounded the miss and put it back in to put the Cougars in charge for good, 60-58, with 6:16 to play.

The Pandas pulled to within one when Elder stripped St. Germain and fed Dustin Sawtelle well ahead of the pack for a layup that made it 64-63. Holmes, who went to the bench with his fourth foul moments before that hoop, returned and quickly scored inside to spark the game-deciding run.

The Cougars held Diallo and Elder to zero and two points, respectively, in the fourth quarter. The Pandas shot 3-for-12 in the fourth.

‘We’ve been working four years for this,” Holmes said. “It feels great. They were the best team we played all  year, no doubt. Diallo and Johnson are great players. We just had to lock down on them and T.J., Josh and Caleb played great ‘D.'”