Relaxed and poised, Warrior sophs shine

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BANGOR – As the Nokomis Warriors stood in a hallway and waited to take the floor for pregame warmups on Saturday night, coach Earl Anderson stood against a wall, a silent and stoic anomaly in a sea of motion and noise.

The Warriors were minutes away from trying to take a girls basketball state crown back to Newport for the first time ever.

The goal: Cap a 22-0 season – and do it with a starting lineup that consisted of one senior and four sophomores.

Out in the bleachers, fans chanted and clapped rhythmically. Bands played. Loud music. … dancing music.

And in the tunnel, his girls obliged.

The Warriors hopped. They bobbed.

They clowned and laughed and smiled.

And they danced. Especially sophomore forward Sara Lowe.

“How can you not laugh at her,” senior standout Laura Pelkey asked Anderson about Lowe, the no-doubt-about-it most wound-up person in the hallway.

He took a glance at a frantically gesturing Lowe and offered a grin. More or less.

Thirty seconds, the Warriors were told. Thirty seconds until showtime.

“Thirty seconds?” Lowe asked. “Quick! New dance!”

Anderson nearly grinned again. But when he’s told that his team seems amazingly loose for a bunch of players who are preparing for the biggest games in their [predominantly very young] lives, Anderson shook his head.

“That’s them,” he said. “That’s the way they’ve always been.”

And on Saturday, that’s the way they remained.

Through a first-half surge that led to a double-digit lead. Through a second-half drought, as Catherine McAuley High nibbled away at that edge and eventually pulled within one point … twice.

And all the way to a 53-43 win over the Lions. And a state Class A title. And a perfect season.

“We’ve been playing together since fifth grade,” Lowe said, in way of explanation. “And we’ve been best friends forever.”

Anderson said that shows up on the court, despite the fact that two years ago four of the starters were playing together at a middle school in Corinna instead of battling for a state title at a sold-out Bangor Auditorium.

No matter what happened, the Warriors were able to figure out a way to deal with it.

“The way it translates is this:” Anderson said. “We were able to hold it together. They huddled up whenever they had the opportunity. They never stopped believing in each other, even when things were going poorly. And they always had faith that they were gonna turn it around.”

They did, based largely on the efforts of its precocious sophomore class. Pelkey, the senior, scored 10 points, defended tough against a formidable McAuley front line, and provided the glue when things started to unravel.

All the sophomores did was make big plays when the game was on the line.

When McAuley pulled within one for the last time, with 3:29 to play, it was a soph, Lindsey Welch, who penetrated and broke down the defense. And it was a soph, Michelle Murray, who benefited by drilling a wide-open 3-pointer that pushed the edge back to four.

Then it was Lowe’s turn: she hit a layup – also off a Welch feed – to push the lead back to four with about two minutes to go.

Another soph, Danielle Clark, scored 18 and pulled down 11 rebounds. She said that despite the Warriors’ success, they still seemed able to sneak up on opponents all year long.

“We were quietly undefeated,” she said after the game, clutching a huge bouquet of flowers that the Warriors received from the Bangor boys team. “We didn’t kill all of our opponents.”

Over the game’s final four minutes, the Warriors scored 11 points. All came from sophomores.

But don’t let the age fool you, Murray warns. These are old sophomores.

“We’ve played [AAU ball] in so many places. We’ve played in Florida. Virginia. … We kind of have the experience that everyone else has, even if they’ve been to the tournament for four years in a row,” Murray said.