Bangor in final tonight Rams, Campbell roll by Nokomis

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BANGOR – When things are going as well as they were for the Bangor boys in their Eastern Class A semifinal game Friday night, the head coach could almost sit back in his chair and start planning for the next game.

Not so for Roger Reed. Despite a 16-point halftime lead, the head coach of the top-seeded Rams lit into his squad in the locker room for a slight letdown at the end of the second quarter.

Reed’s speech re-ignited a fire under his squad and the revitalized Rams charged at, through, and over fifth-seeded Nokomis of Newport in the second half en route to an emphatic 74-54 victory at the Bangor Auditorium.

“Coach got on us real big at halftime,” said sophomore point guard Zak Ray. “I guess that was just it. We didn’t want to get yelled at again. We’re playing our best basketball of the season.”

It’s hard to argue with that statement. The Rams improved to 19-1 and earned a third straight appearance in the regional finals by dominating Friday’s contest: emotionally, physically, and statistically.

Bangor, which will meet No. 2 Skowhegan in Saturday’s 9 p.m. championship game, bested Nokomis in almost every category: The Rams outrebounded the Warriors by a whopping 49-29 margin overall and outshot them 44.6 percent to 31.7 from the field.

Senior Joe Campbell turned in another stellar effort as he scored 22 points, grabbed 16 rebounds (all in the first three quarters) and blocked five shots.

“It was a great team win where everybody came out and played every aspect of the game. Our shots were falling and everything worked,” said Bangor’s 6-foot-5 center-forward.

Nokomis’ man-to-man defense simply couldn’t contain Campbell, especially with all the other starters hitting key shots and going hard to the boards.

Senior swingman Joe Vanidestine had 18 points and eight rebounds to buttress Campbell’s effort and make it nearly impossible for the Warriors to double-team the Rams’ big man. If that wasn’t enough, Rams’ sharpshooter Jim Shea drained a pair of 3-pointers early on to help the Rams stake out a 16-6 lead at the end of the opening quarter.

Shea had 12 points to go along with three steals.

Meanwhile, Ray took the wheel of the Rams’ high octane offensive attack in the second half as he dished out seven of his game-high nine assists to help unleash the Rams’ transition game.

“We were looking to fast break,” said Ray, who also grabbed six boards. “We knew we could beat them down the court because they like to pressure, so if we got an outlet pass, we were gone.”

In a cloud of dust.

Ray assisted on all of Bangor’s first six hoops of the second half. He also helped the Rams forge a 17-2 run that: lasted almost five minutes in the third quarter, staked Bangor to a 53-24 lead, and virtually put the game away.

“Bangor played nearly a perfect game,” said coach Jim DiFrederico, whose Warriors wind up the season 15-6. “Some of our shots didn’t fall early and theirs did. The ones that didn’t, they were able to get some good second and third efforts on while we weren’t.”

Sophomore guard Ryan McLellan led the Warriors with 29 points, but 18 came in the fourth after the Rams had all but iced things.

Josh Johnson blanketed Nokomis’ speedy shooter for much of the game to highlight a suffocating Rams man-to-man defensive effort that contested every pass, shot, and rebound.

“We needed to win as many of the loose balls as possible and it seemed like they came up with all of them,” DiFrederico said.

Johnson, Ray and Shea helped limit Nokomis’ deadly backcourt trio of McLellan, Shawn Henderson, and Trenton Estes to 33 total points.Only 21 of Nokomis’ points were scored in the paint and eight of those came in the fourth quarter.

“Our defense is our mainstay,” Reed said. “Game after game, that’s the thing that’s gonna do it for you.”

Rams 74, Warriors 54

Nokomis (15-6) Bangor (19-1)

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

Henderson 0 8 0 0 0 Vanidestine 6 11 6 6 18

McLellan 9 19 8 8 29 Achorn 0 0 0

Estes 2 7 0 0 4 Ray 2 4 2 7

Burgess 2 3 0 0 4 Shea 4 11 2 12

Peters 1 5 0 0 2 Anderson 0 1 0

Veazie 1 2 0 0 3 Bombardier 0 1 0

Graves 0 0 0 0 0 Hughes 0 1 0 0

Horr 0 1 0 0 0 Campbell 10 15 22

Hayden 3 13 2 2 8 Nickerson 0 2 0

Martin 0 0 0 1 0 Johnson 3 6 2 8

Butler 1 2 2 2 4 Bouchard 0 1 1

Buzanoski 0 0 0 0 0 Bell 0 0 5

Toulouse 0 0 0 0 0 Flynn 0 2 0

Shain 0 1 1 1

Totals 19 60 12 13 54 Totals 25 56 21 27 74

Nokomis 6 20 30 54

Bangor 16 36 54 74

3-pt. goals: Nokomis (4-15): Henderson 0-2, McLellan 3-6, Estes 0-3, Peters 0-1, Veazie 1-2, Horr 0-1; Bangor (3-11): Vanidestine 0-3, Ray 1-2, Shea 2-2, Hughes 0-1, Campbell 0-2, Nickerson 0-1