In fact, after 24 minutes, the Red Devils held a 35-34 lead.

But in the final quarter, the Red Raiders showed why they are worthy of a state ranking.

Jamestown went 8 for 12 from the field and turned the ball over just once in the final eight minutes en route to a 58-50 victory at McElrath Gymnasium.

Sean Paige, who kept the Red Raiders afloat offensively for much of the night, finished with a team-high 20 points, eight rebounds, six steals and three assists.

Jamestown’s Jaydian Johnson takes a 3-pointer in front of Clarence’s Cole Brinkerhoff during Friday’s ECIC Division 1 game at McElrath Gymnasium. P-J photo by Matt Spielman

“The biggest difference in the game was Sean Paige’s aggressiveness. … He’s the one guy that I would consider a good slasher on our team,” Jamestown head coach Ben Drake said. ” … I said ‘we need you to be more aggressive with the dribble and start to make some plays for us.’ He certainly did.”

Armed with a one-point lead entering the fourth quarter, Clarence’s Grayson White scored through contact to make it 37-34 on the Red Devils’ first possession.

The Red Raiders’ Trey Drake answered with a three-point play at the other end of the floor to tie the game and Jaydian Johnson hit his first of three fourth-quarter 3-pointers on Jamestown’s next trip to give the hosts the lead for good.

Johnson extended the lead to 45-40 on another 3-pointer with 5:06 remaining, and then out of a timeout, the sophomore hit his fourth trifecta of the game off an inbounds play to make it 48-40.

“They really fly out hard on the shooters. On the catch … we didn’t have very many open 3s. There were a couple that would’ve made a difference if we would’ve knocked them down,” Drake said. “We continued to play hard and play good defense. That’s what really kept us in it even when we weren’t playing well offensively.”

The closest Clarence would get was five points the rest of the way.

White led the Red Devils with 14 points while Sean Gilmartin and Cole Brinkerhoff each had 10.

Clarence led 13-9 at the end of the first quarter, but Jamestown took a 27-21 lead into halftime.

“In the first half, I thought we didn’t do a great job of blocking out. We gave them some second-chance points. … We gave them two or three offensive rebounds off of free throws,” Drake said. “We just have to be tougher. We have decent overall size, but we don’t have the one 6-7 or 6-8 kid that cleans things up. It has to be more of a team rebounding effort.”

The Red Raiders, the 18th-best team in Class AA according to this week’s New York State Sportswriters Association rankings, then scored just 7 points on 3-of-11 shooting in the third quarter and saw their lead disappear. Gilmartin and Alex Quinn both hit 3-pointers for the Red Devils during the period.

“Give Clarence credit, they’re a good team and they played very good defense throughout the game,” Drake said. “They really, for a better part of the game, had us on our heels.”

But Carson Panebianco scored on a putback near the end of the third quarter to pull Jamestown within a point heading into the final period.

The Red Raiders, who hadn’t played for a week prior to Friday, will not have another game until entertaining Williamsville North at 2:30 p.m. next Saturday at McElrath Gymnasium.

“You don’t really get that very often,” Drake said of the weeks off. “We’ll take advantage of it and try to get better next week because we know a lot of teams in our league will play us zone. We have some decent athletes and I think their answer is to try and slow us down with zone. We have to get better at that.”

NOTES: Jamestown shot 21 of 56 (37.5%) from the field, including 6 of 26 (23.1%) from 3-point range, and turned the ball over 16 times. Johnson finished with 12 points, five assists and four steals; Drake had 10 points and four assists; and Bishop Butts grabbed six rebounds. … Clarence shot 17 of 53 (32.1%) from the field, including 5 of 21 (23.8%) from 3-point range, and turned the ball over 20 times.

CLARENCE (50)

Gilmartin 3 3 11, Brinkerhoff 3 4 11, McCarthy 0 0 0, Tubin 0 0 0, White 5 4 14, Quinn 4 0 10, Ameis 2 0 4, Erbacher 0 0 0. Totals 17 11 50.

JAMESTOWN (58)

Melendez 1 0 2, Paige 9 2 20, Brumagin 1 0 3, Freeney 1 0 2, Drake 2 5 10, Butts 2 3 7, Panebianco 1 0 2, Johnson 4 0 12. Totals 21 10 58.

3-point goals–Gilmartin 2, Brinkerhoff, Quinn 2, Brumagin, Drake, Johnson 4.

Clarence 13 8 14 15 — 50

Jamestown 9 18 7 24 — 58