Ricker’s 29 points pace No. 6 Shead past BC

BANGOR – There were a couple of times during Saturday night’s Class D girls quarterfinal matchup between Shead and Bangor Christian that it appeared the magnitude of the moment had caught up with the Tigerettes’ Samantha Davis.

Twice during timeouts, the freshman ran off into a corner of the Bangor Auditorium and became sick. It turns out that it wasn’t a case of the jitters. Just a case of the flu bug taking its toll on the young guard.

Had it been a case of nerves, Davis needn’t have worried. Her senior counterpart, Sara Ricker, has seen all of this before. Ricker coolly poured in 29 points to take sixth-seeded Shead of Eastport past No. 3 Bangor Christian 51-40.

Shead meets the winner of today’s Van Buren-East Grand match up in a 2:05 p.m. Thursday semifinal.

Ricker constantly confounded Bangor Christian by slicing through the heart of the Patriots’ defense and taking the ball to the basket, either making a layup or drawing the foul.

“We wanted to get to the foul line and get them into foul trouble and see what they had for a bench,” Ricker said.

The strategy worked on both counts. Ricker made eight of nine from the free throw line and the Tigerettes managed to draw three first-quarter fouls on BC’s Pam Reitsma that forced the 6-foot-1 center to play less aggressively for the remainder of the game.

“We don’t have much height and they needed her,” Ricker said.

Shead, now 15-6, trailed 11-5 after the first quarter but went on a second-quarter run in which they outscored the Patriots 17-8 and held BC scoreless for the final 4:24 of the half to take control of the game.

Though the win is considered an upset because of the teams’ seeds, Ricker and Shead have seen this before. They won the 1999 state championship after being the sixth seed in the east.

“We play a lot of Class C teams on our schedule,” Ricker said. “We’re not that bad, I guess.”

Danielle Miller topped the Patriots with 14 points. Reitsma pulled down 11 rebounds as BC closed out the season at 15-4.

Tigerettes 51, Patriots 40

Shead girls (15-6) Bangor Christian (15-4)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Green 2 4 0 2 4 Miller 6 14 14

Smith 2 7 1 4 5 Mick 2 14 8

Davis 2 9 2 2 7 Ross 4 14 9

Stubbs 0 0 0 0 0 Moores 0 4 2

Ricker 10 18 8 9 29 Simmons 0 0 0

Beaulieu 3 4 0 0 6 Haverlock 2 4

Lingley 0 1 0 0 0 Reitsma 1 5 3

Totals 19 43 11 17 51 15 55 11 40

Shead 5 22 35 51

Bangor Christian 11 19 30 40

3-pt. goals: Shead (2-5): Davis 1-4, Ricker 1-1; Bangor Christian (3-12): Miller 2-5, 1-6, Haverlock 0-1