BANGOR – Hundreds of basketball fans got their money’s worth at the Bangor Auditorium Thursday night as they watched the Nokomis Area High School Lady Warriors defeat the Bangor girls in double overtime.

Nokomis grabbed the game from Bangor, winning 54-51, and now moves to Saturday night’s Eastern Maine Class A final against No. 1 Cony of Augusta at 7:07 p.m.

The Lady Warriors scratched their way back from a 15-point deficit in the first half to tie the score at 37-all on a Kelly Bowman foul shot before time ran out in the second half.

Bangor’s swarming motion defense isolated Bowman, holding her to a single basket in the first half.

“In the first half, they came out with a lot of intensity so we went into the locker room and calmed down,” said Katie Nye, Nokomis’ sophomore guard who started the night with a three-point shot at 3:52, and finished with 17 points, including her team’s final four from the foul line in the second overtime.

“We started getting the ball to Kelly, where she wanted it, and she really turned things around,” Nye added.

Bowman, who fouled out with 1:35 left in the first overtime, finished strong with 17 points, eight of those coming within four minutes during her team’s third-quarter resurgence.

“I think we went in at halftime and coach (Jeff Richards) gave us a good talk, and we came out strong,” Bowman said. “We just started coming back little by little, and all of a sudden, we were there.”

Bangor finished the first quarter with a comfortable 14-5 lead and led 24-9 at halftime.

But Nokomis overcame Bangor’s defense with accurate passes and a patient defense, as Bowman adjusted her posting move, moving from the high post to the low.

“They’re too good a team to hold down for too long,” said an emotional Bangor coach Tom Tennett.

On the Bangor side, 6-foot junior Katie Clark finished with 27 points, including six in the two overtimes.

“We had to stop Katie (Clark),” said Richards. “It took us 15 fouls, with Kelly, Emily (Lemire), and Jamie (Nye), but we did it.”

Warriors 54, Rams 51 (2OT)

Bangor Nokomis

Name G AG F AF TP Name G AG F AF TP

Partridge 0 5 0 0 0 Stevens 3 9 0 0 6

Parker 2 3 0 0 4 Burgess 3 9 2 5 9

Kinney 4 10 3 4 11 Bowman 6 13 5 8 17

Murray 3 6 2 3 8 K. Nye 3 10 9 11 17

Clark 10 26 7 17 27 Pelkey 0 0 0 0 0

Waterman 0 1 1 2 1 Dorman 0 0 0 0 0

Morse 0 0 0 0 0 Lemire 1 3 0 0 2

J. Nye 1 5 1 2 3

Totals 19 51 13 26 51 Totals 17 49 17 26 54

Bangor 14 24 30 37 42 51

Nokomis 5 9 28 37 42 54

3-pt. goals: Bangor (0-3): Partridge 0-3; Nokomis (3-14): Stevens 0-5, Burgess 1-3, K. Nye 2-5, J. Nye 0-1