AUBURN — Step right up, Eastern Class A boys’ basketball fans and coaches. Get your blood pressure medication here.

Only five weeks until the tournament, and the way it looks right now, there might be a run on the stuff.

Tim Dudley collected Steele Savage’s 3-point bid off the back rim and banked it in off the glass at the buzzer Saturday afternoon, lifting Lawrence to a 46-45 win over Edward Little in a KVAC thriller.

Lawrence (7-3) rallied from a six-point deficit in the final 5:47 and held Edward Little (5-5) scoreless for the final 97 seconds, surviving a grind that has become the norm in a startlingly balanced league.

“I thought No. 1 might get the only easy draw (in the regional quarterfinals),” Lawrence coach Mike McGee said, “but the way Cony and Oxford Hills are playing right now, that isn’t going to happen.”

The Eddies’ 39-33 advantage with just under six minutes to go was the largest for either team.

It should have been bigger. The Eddies had three chances to complete a traditional 3-point play early in the fourth quarter. Each time they missed the free throw.

Back stormed the Bulldogs, on the shoulders of five points from Alex Leathers and four by Spencer Carey.

Carey led Lawrence with 17 points, including an inside bucket via Dudley to pull his team within 45-44 at the 1:19 mark.

EL had a one-and-one with 26 seconds to go. Again, it rattled off the iron. The Eddies were 2-for-8 from the stripe, missing their last six.

“We haven’t been lighting it up, but we usually get a few more attempts than that, being an inside team,” EL coach Mike Adams said. “You know, 47 seconds to go, up one, we’ve got the ball and I’m saying, ‘OK, this is where we want to be.’ But it wasn’t.”

Dudley, in a developing theme, gathered the defensive rebound. Lawrence pushed the ball into the half court and called timeout with 7.9 seconds left.

EL surveyed Lawrence’s offensive set and called its own timeout, intensifying the chess match.

“We got the ball to Spencer and they double-teamed him, which was a great move by Mike,” McGee said. “He was still athletic enough to find the open 3, and Steele is our best 3-point shooter.”

Dudley crashed from the weak side, caught the carom without a Red Eddie at arms’ length and flicked it basketward just inside the horn.

“I could see it was probably going to be long,” said Dudley, a six-foot senior, “so I just tried to run, jump and see what I could get.”

Four of Dudley’s points came in the final 2:07.

EL’s Quin Leary scored 12 of his game-high 18 points in the second half. Ian Therriault and Omar Haji-Hersi added eight points each for the Eddies, who had two other starters in foul trouble for much of the game.

The buzzer-beater represented the 12th lead change. EL led 9-5 after the first period.

Lawrence lunged ahead 17-15 at the half. Therriault’s hoop with eight seconds left in the third made it a 33-31 EL edge.

Nate Alexander hit two big buckets down the stretch in the fourth, temporarily salvaging the EL lead.

“We’ve had a lot of close games, but nothing like this,” Carey said.

“It’s one of the biggest wins in my 30 years here,” added McGee. “To come in here and beat a time like this that’s a two-time Eastern Maine champion, been to (four) straight Eastern finals … This could be the win that turns it around for us and shows us what it’s like to win big games.”

And EL finds itself on the flip side, letting one slip away in which it shot 60 percent from the field in the second half and committed only 10 total turnovers.

The Eddies are 1-4 in their last five games since beating Lewiston on Dec. 23.

“Our freshmen had to play quite a few minutes,” Adams said. “Maybe they’ll keep getting more minutes and maybe that will light a fire under some people.”

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