Balanced Hermon effort ousts Camden-Rockport

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BANGOR – It’s easy to look at the combined stats for Ryan Garland and Chris Gray from Wednesday afternoon’s semifinal and give them all the credit for No. 6 Hermon’s 70-56 upset of defending state and two-time defending East champ Camden-Rockport.

No, the Hawks couldn’t have won without Garland (21 points, nine rebounds, four assists, two steals and a blocked shot) and Gray (20 points, 15 rebounds, one block), but make no mistake, the second straight win over a top-three seed by the 15-5 Hawks was a well-oiled, machine-like team effort.

From senior forward Chad Pelton’s 12 points to freshman guard Joey Schacht’s nine, from six combined rebounds by freshman Ron Lane and sophomore Wayne Shaw to Jason Ouellette’s defense off the bench, everyone and every stat played a key role in snapping C-R’s seven-game Eastern Maine Class B tournament win streak.

Now it’s on to Saturday’s 4 p.m. regional championship as Hermon will play the winner of Wednesday night’s Erskine Academy-Mount View game. The Windjammers wind up 14-6 after their first EM tourney loss in three seasons.

Rookie head coach Rick Sinclair was worried how his Hawks would handle C-R’s notorious pressing defense, especially since he only went two deep on his bench.

Not that anyone wanted to come out, especially the 6-foot-9 Gray.

“The last two years, we’ve been knocked out in the first round. It’s very disappointing to pack up after your first game,” said Gray. “This is unfinished business for us.”

Hermon handled C-R’s press well and attacked the 2-3 zone that the ‘Jammers came out with successfully as Garland and Schacht drove hard to the hole or passed to the open man near the baseline or in the blocks for layups and/or C-R fouls.

“We didn’t want to just break their pressure, get over halfcourt and just set it up,” Sinclair said. “We wanted to break it and get layups.”

Hawks 70, Windjammers 56

Hermon boys (15-5) Camden-Rockport (14-6)

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

Schacht 3 6 2 3 9 Wilson 2 7 0 0 4

Goodspeed 0 0 0 0 0 May 1 1 0 0 3

Speaker 0 1 0 0 0 MacDonald 4 15 2 2 10

Garland 7 13 7 10 21 Marshall 2 5 1 1 7

Watson 0 0 0 0 0 Moro 0 0 0 0 0

Shaw 1 3 2 2 4 Dugal 0 3 0 2 0

Gray 6 11 7 9 20 Fitzpatrick 3 10 2 2 9

Lane 1 2 2 4 4 Smith 0 0 0 0 0

Ouellette 0 0 0 0 0 Warren 0 0 0 0 0

Pelton 6 9 0 0 12 Knutson 6 13 2 3 19

Robinson 0 0 0 0 0 Dennen 0 0 0 0 0

Lippman 0 1 0 0 0

Taggart 0 1 0 0 0

McIntyre 2 4 0 0 4

Totals 24 45 20 28 70 Totals 20 60 7 10 56

Hermon 14 34 49 70

Camden-Rockport 8 27 37 56

3-pt. goals: Hermon (2-4): Schacht 1-1, Gray 1-2, Speaker 0-1; Camden-Rockport (9-34): Knutson 5-11, Marshall 2-5, May 1-1, Fitzpatrick 1-7, Wilson 0-3, MacDonald 0-7