Houlton, Winslow, and MDI will bring their top talent to EM B girls’ tourney

Tournament spectators won’t likely see a lot of reshuffling from last season when the top Eastern Maine Class B girls teams hit the Bangor Auditorium for the regional competition.

Mount Desert Island, the top-ranked team in the Northeastern region standings and the defending Class B state champion, finished up its season with a school-record 17 wins. Houlton, which fell out of the tournament a bit early last season, racked up 14 wins this season on a very tough schedule.

In the Southeastern standings, undefeated Winslow will likely return to the Auditorium with its typical speed and stellar guard play. And Camden Hills, which went almost the entire season without a key returning starter, still emerged with a 16-2 mark.

Maranacook of Readfield, new to Eastern Maine this year, put together a 13-5 season and should make an Auditorium appearance.

MDI’s single loss this year came against defending Class A champ Nokomis of Newport, but the Trojans ended up with a win to split the series. They also beat Class A Bangor twice.

Trojan coach Burt Barker likes the way his team played out the regular season.

“We’re playing reasonably well but we hadn’t been shooting that well,” he said. “The last game against Searsport [a 75-36 win] we shot better and so I think we’re starting to come out of the slump a little. … We don’t have a post game, so we really have to shoot well from the outside.”

MDI hit eight 3-pointers in that game. Six different players each hit at least one shot apiece.

So far, the lack of a true post player hasn’t been a big problem for the Trojans. They have a fine collection of guards and small but athletic forwards.

MDI has one of the top backcourts in the state with 6-foot-1 Bracey Barker at the point, 5-8 Shelley Gott as a dangerous presence on the wings, and experienced guard Kara Horton. The Trojans also start Leah Joy and Tanya Kane, who has proven she can be an offensive presence this year (Kane had a career-high 23 points in a December win over Bangor).

Jerry Tweedie’s Houlton squad features a range of scoring options with its solid post play and perimeter threats.

Then there’s Hannah Socoby. Just how key is the senior guard?

“A bird can’t fly without wings, fish can’t swim without fins, and she’s like that for us,” Tweedie said. “She is right now our leading scorer and by far is leading in assists and takeaways. She will get in there and rebound also. Sarah [Beasley] takes control underneath but Hannah gets us going.”

Socoby, athletic 5-10 senior forward Beasley, senior guard Tamara Goodrich, junior guard Kasey Cleary and 5-10 sophomore forward Katherine Cole are the starters. Cleary is a fine outside shooter (she hit seven 3-pointers in a game against Presque Isle in December), whil Cole and Beasley led the team in rebounding. Sylvia Brown and the 5-10 Nicole Botting have provided strong bench play.

The Shiretowners finished the regular season at 14-4 despite what’s got to be one of the toughest schedules in Class B. Houlton dropped two games each to Calais and Nokomis, but swept Class A Presque Isle, Class C teams Madawaska and Stearns of Millinocket, and Class B rival Caribou.

Houlton ended the regular-season with a five-game win streak and was 9-1 over its final 10 games.

“We’ve only had a couple of nights going in where we thought we might let up,” Tweedie said. “There haven’t been that many breaks. It’s been a good, tough schedule which hopefully will pay off.”

Tweedie said the Shiretowners will work on their press-breaker with an eye toward playing teams like Winslow or Camden Hills which have tough pressure defenses.

Defense has certain been a big difference for the Black Raiders and Windjammers this year.

Winslow, the top seed in the Southeastern region, had its first undefeated season in program history under nine-year coach Jim Poulin.

Three Raiders had scoring averages in double-digits near the end of the regular season: senior guard Katie Flaherty (14.6), senior guard Bethany Roderigue (13.7) and freshman forward Sarah Roderigue (13.2).

The Roderigue sisters are two of four players listed at 5-8, which is as tall as Winslow gets (Sarah was leading the team with 7.3 rebounds per game). But that’s nothing new for the Raiders, who depend heavily on speed and guard play.

Sarah and Bethany Roderigue were averaging 5.0 and 4.3 steals, respectively. Flaherty was leading the KVAC in assists (5.4 apg) and Bethany Roderigue was averaging 3.6 apg.

Camden Hills coach Jay Carlsen said recently he wasn’t sure what would become of his team when standout forward Lauren Withey suffered a preseason knee injury.

So what happened this season? The Windjammers went 16-2 (both losses were to Winslow) as plenty of Camden players came to the fore. And the good news for the ‘Jammers is that Withey is back playing and seems to be getting into the flow. She scored a season-high 13 points in Camden’s final game of the season against Belfast.

Andrea Blanchard is leading the ‘Jammers with about 15 points per game (along with about seven rebounds), while Charlotte Croce has been averaging about 11 points. Both girls have averaged about three steals per game.

Maranacook is another team with a fine inside-outside game. Erica Brennan leads the Black Bears (and the KVAC) with about 10 rebounds per game, and also scores at a 13.8 per-game clip. Guards Toby Martin (13.2 points) and Kasie Mason (8.5 points, 3.3 steals, 3.7 assists) both had breakout seasons.