By MICHAEL KELLY

For the Express

This time, the Mayfield Panthers got to be the ones wildly celebrating a last-second, one-point victory.

When Mayfield boys basketball’s Dylan Toscano hit a baseline jump shot with just a few seconds to play this past Friday, it sent the Panthers past Saratoga Central Catholic, 46-45.

Earlier this season, Mayfield had been on the other end of a last-second finish to a game, when the Galway Golden Eagles (2-8, 2-4 Western Athletic Conference North Division) earned their first win of the season in dramatic fashion at the Panthers’ expense.

“It was crazy, it really was,” said Mayfield head coach Brian VanNostrand. “It was almost ... well ... I don’t even have words to explain it.”

After having gone through the losing end of such a finish earlier this season, Van Nostrand said his team was thrilled to be able to put someone else — namely, WAC-rival SCC (5-5, 4-4) — in that situation, and leave itself to celebrate.

“To see the kids’ faces after the game in the locker room ... that was the coolest part about it,” the coach said.

Earlier this season, Mayfield (6-4, 3-3) struggled to come together through a rocky start to the 2011-12 campaign. After a solid start in non-league play, the Panthers dropped three of their first four WAC games.

VanNostrand said the unfriendly beginning came because the club just could not figure itself out.

“[Early on in the season], you’re trying to find your identity as a team — as the season has gone on, we’re now starting to find out identity,” he said. “I feel as though we are coming together as a team. We’re starting to see things click together.”

The low point for the Panthers in their time before coming together was in the team’s first game in WAC play, when Mayfield lost to Fort Plain (7-3, 5-1) and missed its first 18 shots of the frustrating contest.

“I think, as a team, in that game we did a lot of individual stuff, but we also got very frustrated when things didn’t go our way,” said VanNostrand. “Instead, now, it’s more we’re playing together and starting to see that when things aren’t going our way, we can make little comebacks and produce a win at the end of games.”