Underdog status pleasing for WM titlist Cheverus

They don’t have a home court, they lost one of their top players to academic ineligibility in January, their school hasn’t played in a state championship basketball game in 15 years, and they play for a coach whose programs traditionally don’t usually start to jell until the month of February.

It’s easy to see why the Cheverus Stags of Portland pride themselves on their underdog status.

As the No. 7 seed, Cheverus was an underdog in the Western Maine Class A tournament, but an underdog nobody wanted to play.

The Stags beat No. 10 Biddeford in a preliminary game just to make it to the tourney. Then they staked an undisputable claim to the West crown by knocking off the top three tourney seeds – No. 2 Portland, No. 3 South Portland, and No. 1 Bonny Eagle of West Buxton.

The 16-6 Stags didn’t need any last-second heroics to do it either. Their average margin of victory in the tourney was 12.3 points.

“They were all tight ballgames, but things worked out that we seemed to explode down the stretch each time,” said Cheverus coach Bob Brewer. “We’ve been a fourth-quarter team all season.”

Brewer’s Stags will take on East champ Mt. Blue of Farmington 9 p.m. Saturday in the Bangor Auditorium for the state crown.

“We feel like we’re a big underdog again, but that’s the mentality of a small school,” said Bob Brewer, a Rockland alumnus in his 26th year as math teacher and boys coach at the private school. “I’d say that 80 percent of my team has never even been to Bangor.”

The Catholic, boys-only school has one of the smallest enrollments (315) among Maine Class A teams and does not have a home court.

“We play our home games at the [Portland] Expo and at McAuley School,” said Brewer. “I turn that into a plus because we’re the only team that doesn’t rely on home court advantage to win games.”

Cheverus’ guards are all 5-foot-11 or smaller, but they make up for height with athletic talent.

Senior point guard Richie Ashley quarterbacked the football team to the Western semifinals. Junior guards Angelo Salvaggio and B.J. Schuyler are also multi-talented. Salvaggio was state runnerup in the high jump despite his 5-foot-11 frame and the 5-10 Schuyler was an all-conference soccer player.

The other starters are forwards Patrick Clark, a 6-4 junior, and Alvin Weisberg, a 6-3 sophomore.

“We’re not big, but we’re very athletic,” Brewer said.

They’re also fairly deep with 5-9 junior point man Patrick Morang, who Brewer calls a “momentum-changer” coming off the bench along with 6-4 junior forward Patrick Morang, and 6-4 senior center Ian Doyle.

Cheverus likes to run a lot of motion offense and dictate the tempo by using full-court defensive pressure to create turnovers, but also prides itself on versatility. The Stags have nine offensive sets and use six different defenses. Opponents averaged less than 50 points a game against Cheverus.