BANGOR — The Mount Desert Island Trojan boys suffered their first — and only — loss of the season on Saturday at the Bangor Auditorium.

With it went the Eastern Maine Class B Championship as the third-ranked Gardiner Tigers led almost from start to finish in downing the Trojans 70-58.

“I don’t know if it was nerves or what,” said MDI coach Justin Norwood. “Sometimes you just have off nights. All season we’ve been good enough to overcome that. But when you play a team like Gardiner, it’s not good enough.”

MDI fell behind to stay when Jake Palmer of the Tigers scored seven consecutive points to give Gardiner an 11-5 lead midway through the first quarter.

While the shots weren’t falling for the Trojans, the Tigers encountered no such trouble, averaging better than 50 percent from the floor as they built a 37-24 lead by the halftime break.

The top-ranked Trojans, who had the best regular season in school history, never could string together more than two baskets at a time to mount a sustained run against the third-ranked Tigers.

MDI did manage to cut the lead to seven points twice in the fourth period.

But the first time, after Adam Gray hit a pair of foul shots, Gardiner’s Alonzo Connor and Palmer combined for three of four free throws, pushing the lead back to 59-49.

Jayson Burke then completed a conventional three-point play for MDI, but the Tigers responded with five unanswered points and went six-for-eight from the free throw line in the final 48 seconds to clinch the win.

Four of the five MDI starters scored in double figures but the Trojans, who ended the season with a record of 20-1, got just two points from the remainder of the team.

Gray, MDI’s junior center, finished with 17 points, Burke had 15 to go with 15 rebounds, and guards Nick Shaw and Caleb MacDonald each had 12 points.

“I wish we were still playing,” said Norwood this week. “It’s a bummer we don’t get to practice together anymore and we don’t get to play together anymore. But that’s high school athletics; all of a sudden, it’s over.”

Norwood said that, after Saturday’s game ended, “I told them how proud I was of them, how much I was going to miss it, how much I love them. It was a magical season for yus. And we have no reason to hang our heads.”

For 19-2 Gardiner, Palmer had a big game with 23 points and Aaron Toman had 16.

The Tigers are slated to face Western Maine champion Yarmouth Friday at the Bangor Auditorium for the state Class B title.

For more sports news, pick up a copy of the Mount Desert Islander.