BIDDEFORD — Can a high school hockey game possibly outshine the glitzy build up?

If it’s a renewal of the Thornton Academy and Biddeford food fight, it can.

Saturday’s clash between the Saco River rivals, taken in dramatic, late-minute fashion by Biddeford, 3-2, not only lived up to the hype: It overwhelmed it.

You could see it on the crest fallen faces of the Golden Trojans as they exited the Biddeford Ice Arena surface, leaving their very best effort behind them.

And you could see hear it in the voices of the Tigers, who were both exhausted and exhilarated.

“It’s so hard to describe,” said Craig Anton, who netted the game-winner with 52.3 seconds remaining. “It’s just an amazing feeling. A goal like that to beat TA. With seconds left. Amazing.”

Said sophomore defenseman Eric Grover, who set up the game-winner while getting his first taste of the rivalry, “You can’t even explain how it feels to be out there. The Tigers and Trojans.”

The tug of war would have lost nothing had it been staged under street lights on Elm Street, or in front of Rapid Ray’s at 2 a.m.

But throw in a full house at BIA and two teams with perfect records, and voila. A Winter Classic (sorry NHL).

“It should be like this all the time,” said Craig King, the new BIA rink manager who is a newbie to the rivalry, as he surveyed the scene from the upper balcony.

Of course, it can’t be. Otherwise such get togethers wouldn’t be special.

This one took on an electric air as the team’s traded scores in a contest that was played at a feverish pace throughout.

Biddeford, which never trailed, grabbed its first lead at 7:08 of the first, when sophomore Tyson Nadeau backhanded Derek Reny’s nifty cross-ice feed past Thornton goalie Rick Hebb.

Defenseman Ryan Locke answered for the Trojans at 8:44 of the second period, with the first of his two goals.

The Tigers regained the lead just 38 seconds into the third frame, when freshman Brady Fleurent finished off  a feed from his brother Trevor.

But Thornton knotted the score seven minutes later, when Locke’s shot from the right point took a strange bounce off Tigers goalie Matt Roy and rattled in.

That set the stage for the last minute drama, which heightened when Thornton picked up a holding call with 2:13 to go.

That gave the potent Tiger power play, which Thornton had been kept under wraps, one more chance to operate.

Biddeford made good on the opportunity with a play that began as a point-to-point pass from left defenseman Nick Gagne to Grover.

Grover, in turn, fired toward the net, only to have it head wide to the right, where Anton got his stick on it.

“That was supposed to be a shot,” said Grover. “When you shoot it to the net, people are in front, and hopefully it will get tipped and go in.”

Which is precisely what Anton did.

“I think he (Grover) saw me back door,” said Anton. “Saw my stick was on the ice, and just put it right there. I deflected it right in.”

The play was precisely what the Trojans had hoped to guard against.

“We worked all week on preparing for their power play,” said Thornton coach Scott Rousseau, “knowing they were going to look for deflections down low. So the fact that they could execute with under a minute left on precisely the play that we spent all week preparing for, I have to give them credit for that.”

Both teams will see action again on Wednesday. Biddeford will host Falmouth at BIA (4:30 p.m.), while the Trojans will visit Cape Elizabeth.

— Contact Dan Hickling at dhickling@journaltribune.com.