BANGOR – After a sluggish start, Bangor’s boys woke up to post an emphatic 81-36 victory over Waterville in Saturday morning’s Eastern Class A quarterfinal at the Bangor Auditorium.

Apparently they just needed their morning cup of Joe.

Joe Campbell, that is. The Rams’ 6-foot-5 senior forward simply dominated the Purple Panthers on the way to 26 points, 20 rebounds, four blocked shots and three steals – all game-highs. He also held Panthers’ leading scorer Justin Wolcott to nine points.

“Joe’s amazing. He’s the heart and soul of our team,” said Rams reserve forward Derrick Shain, who also played a big part in the Rams’ rapid resurgence. “When he’s hot, everybody’s hot and we start rolling like we did today.”

The Rams started rolling like a cannonball down a candlepin lane after watching Waterville take a 17-10 lead 11 seconds into the second quarter. A pull-up jumper from the left block by senior guard Joe Vanidestine (10 points) started a 19-3 Rams’ run that lasted through the rest of the first half.

Top-seeded Bangor, now 18-1, will next meet Nokomis of Newport in a 7:10 p.m. semifinal. No. 8 Waterville bows out with a 10-10 mark.

“The big key was Bangor got their transition game going,” said Panthers coach Ken Lindloff. “That kind of changed the game because they were able to play with more confidence.”

The chief instigator of that was Rams’ point guard Zak Ray, who dished out four assists and canned a 3-pointer during the early run. The 5-10 sophomore finished with 12 points and six assists.

Shain and senior center Eric Bell turned in solid efforts off the bench with six points each. They also combined for 11 rebounds (eight for Shain) to help limit the Panthers to one shot.

“When they took [Jim] Shea out and went big, it kept us off the offensive boards,” said Lindloff, whose Panthers pulled down four of their eight total offensive rebounds in the first quarter.

Bangor outrebounded the Panthers 33-13 after the first quarter and 45-24 overall. The Rams also tightened their man-to-man defensive pressure to help force 13 turnovers in the second half. Bangor committed just eight turnovers to Waterville’s 18.

Any Waterville fans’ hopes for a comeback were stomped out by a massive 26-0 Bangor run that began with 3:45 left in the third and ended with 5:39 to go in the fourth.

Senior swingman Chris LaPlante was Waterville’s lone double-digit scorer with 12 points as the Panthers shot 29.8 percent to Bangor’s 59.6 effort from the field.

Rams 81, Purple Panthers 36

Waterville boys (10-10) Bangor (18-1)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG F AF TP

LaPlante 4 7 0 0 12 Vanidestine 4 10 2 3 10

Nale 3 11 0 3 7 Achorn 2 2 0 5

DeGuzman 2 9 0 2 4 Ray 5 8 12

Lockard 0 5 0 0 0 Shea 2 4 0 4

DerSimonian 0 0 0 0 0 Anderson 0 0

Pease 0 1 0 0 0 Bombardier 0 0 0

Duffy 0 2 0 0 0 Hughes 1 2 0 2

Wolcott 3 8 2 4 9 Campbell 12 16 26

Veilleux 2 3 0 2 4 Nickerson 1 2

Dwyer 0 1 0 0 0 Johnson 2 5 2 6

Spector 0 0 0 1 0 Bouchard 0 0 0

Bell 3 3 0 6

Flynn 0 1 2 2

Shain 2 3 2 6

Totals 14 47 2 12 36 Totals 34 57 10 16 81

Waterville 15 20 30 36

Bangor 10 29 51 81

3-pt. goals: Waterville (6-16): LaPlante 4-6, Wolcott 1-1, Nale 1-4, Lockard 0-2, DeGuzman 0-3; Bangor (3-7): Achorn 1-1, Campbell 1-1, Ray 1-2, Vanidestine 0-1, Shea 0-1, Hughes 0-1