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BANGOR – For the second straight game, the Bangor boys basketball team found itself locked in a dogfight with a Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference foe at Red Barry Gym.
And for the second straight game, Jason St. Pierre strapped the Rams to his back during crunch time and delivered a victory.
The senior guard erupted for 18 of his 25 points in the second half and served as the catalyst of a chilling Bangor defensive effort as the Rams rallied from a 14-point deficit to top Lawrence of Fairfield 46-40 on Monday.
Coach Roger Reed’s Rams, winners of two straight state Class A titles, improved to 9-1. The Bulldogs dropped to 5-4.
“[Coach] just said that we had to pick up the intensity and play hard, not give up even though the momentum wasn’t going our way at the time,” St. Pierre said of Reed’s halftime comments.
The Bulldogs were effective in the first half, shaking off a 71-36 drubbing handed to them on Jan. 7 by the Rams and sticking close. They took a page from Waterville’s deliberate 46-45 near upset of Bangor on Friday night and established a 28-14 lead at the half.
“The difference in this game, what affected us most, was the way they ran their offense,” Reed said of the Bulldogs’ patience.
Lawrence coach Mike McGee pointed at his team’s defensive effort as a key.
“I think in the first half Bangor was all out of sorts,” he said. “They were a mess with our defense, and it was as good a defense as we’d played since the ’94 state championship team.”
But in the second half, the Rams upped the ante defensively, unleashing a run-and-jump in the halfcourt that made the Bulldogs look like they were playing against eight men.
“We’re not a great offensive team,” McGee said. “We don’t have great basketball players that would take a trap and eat it up. Trapping bothers us a little bit and I think we became a little tentative and threw it around a little bit.”
St. Pierre was the catalyst, making four steals in the second half and igniting both key runs.
The first was a 9-0 spurt to open the first half, during which the 6-foot-2 leaper scored six points, including two on coast-to-coast jaunts after steals.
And after pulling within 36-30 at the end of three, the Rams kept the pressure on, allowing just four more points in the game and scoring the first 11 points of the final period.
Again it was St. Pierre who did the bulk of the damage, scoring the first seven points of the quarter on a pair of layups and a 3-pointer from the wing on an out-of-bounds play that gave the Rams their first lead of the game – 37-36 with 6:02 left. They pushed that lead to 41-36 and were never headed.
“They just took care of the ball in the first half and did what they wanted to do. In the second half, we came out and played better,” Bangor junior Tommy Waterman said.
Hampering the Lawrence second-half effort was the foul trouble of top scorer Quinson Lancaster. He finished with 12 points, but fouled out with 3:15 to go. Senior Chad Denis added 10 points.
St. Pierre was the lone Ram in double figures.
Rams 46, Bulldogs 40
Lawrence (5-4) Bangor (9-1)
Name G AG F AF TP Name G AG F AF TP
Lancaster 6 11 0 0 12 Waterman 3 9 2 5 8
Buck 2 5 4 11 8 St. Pierre 9 13 4 6 25
Hartsgrove 2 3 0 0 4 Moses 0 2 0 0 0
Denis 4 7 2 3 10 Wilcox 0 0 2 2 2
Spieldenner 0 0 0 0 0 Civiello 1 2 4 4 6
Bolduc 1 3 0 0 2 Arsenault 2 5 1 2 5
Underwood 1 5 0 0 2
Petrie 1 2 0 0 2
Totals 17 36 6 14 40 Totals 15 31 13 19 46
Lawrence 13 28 36 40
Bangor 7 14 30 46
3-pt. goals: Lawrence (0-5): Lancaster 0-2, Buck 0-1, Denis 0-1, Underwood 0-1; Bangor (3-5): Waterman 0-1, St. Pierre 3-3, Arsenault 0-1
Attendance: 400
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