BANGOR – There’s no chance the Shead Tigers will ever be able to sneak into the Bangor Auditorium.

The girls from Eastport are annually one of the top Class D programs in Eastern Maine and have become a fixture at the Auditorium, but even if that weren’t the case, they’d still attract attention.

Why? It must be the shoes.

Every team member is sporting snazzy new orange-and-white basketball shoes this year, but four of the players have taken the team colors (orange-and-black) concept a step further. They’re wearing an orange/white shoe on one foot and a black/white shoe on the other.

“There wasn’t any more orange sneakers left in the magazine, so we had to get black ones and then some of us switched,” said sophomore Samantha Davis, who shares a size 7 with senior Mindy Preston.

The other two girls, sophomore Vanessa McPhail and freshman Tiffany Martinez, share size 71/2.

“We’re just showing team spirit,” said McPhail.

When Shead placed a team order with national athletic supplier Eastbay for orange and white sneakers, Eastbay came up two pairs short of the snazzy sneakers.

“That was all done on their own because they were out of the color we wanted,” said Mindy’s uncle and head coach Dean Preston, who added he wasn’t surprised by the girls’ unique solution.

“We spend a lot of time doing things together with this team,” he said. “The girls design their own team shirts and they work hard on it. They have a lot of fun with everything.”

Will this new fashion trend catch on? Well, it depends.

“It depends on whether we can find enough people with the same size shoes,” McPhail said.

Line dancing

When it comes to basketball, East Grand of Danforth’s James Godley can turn the court into a dance floor.

The Vikings’ senior guard dazzles teammates, opponents and fans alike with his fancy footwork.

Even when he’s not running the fast break or helping lead the Vikings unflagging press, it’s impossible for him to stand still.

Godley has perhaps the most unusual foul shooting regimen you’ll see from any player in the tournament.

Godley’s “foot tap” starts with his left foot flat as he bounces the ball with his right hand, he rolls his foot forward to the toe back flat, then to the heel, and flat again – all as he bounces the ball once. He does this four times before shooting a free throw.

“I started it my sophomore year. I was just kind of fooling around in practice with it and then in one of the games, which happened to be a blowout, and I went something like 11 for 12 from the line,” Godley said. “It gave me kind of a good rhythm so it’s kind of been a good luck thing.”

Godley says it helps him focus.

“I do it pretty quick so everything else exits my mind,” he explained. “It gets me in a good rhythm, and I don’t really hear anything else. I can concentrate on the shot.”

Touching the rim

On the way back to the locker room after her Mount Desert Island Trojans won their Saturday quarterfinal game, junior point guard Bracey Barker began to trot down the back hallway … then leaped up, stretching for the ceiling about 10 feet above her.

“Arrrgh” Barker growled. “I haven’t touched the ceiling yet.”

Barker has become fascinated with jumping high lately … ever since she touched the rim before MDI’s Big East Class B championship game at the Auditorium last week.

“She thumped it,” her father and coach, Burt Barker, said. “She thumped it good.”

To her dismay, she can’t do it every time, though.

“I touched it at home, too,” she said. “I touched it once, here, and then the next three times I couldn’t touch it.”

Burt Barker said she is the first girl he has coached since 1982 who has been able to touch the rim. Tracy Carroll did it back then … though Burt didn’t witness it. Former MDI and UMaine star Victoria Watras also came close, he said.

Bracey Barker is lanky, and her long arms make the feat a bit more possible. But she’s still got to leap to get there.

She and her father say that a weight-lifting program the Trojans have been using all season long has helped.

“It’s made a big difference to her,” Burt Barker said. “Not to all [of the Trojans], because I have some pretty strong kids already. But to her, it’s made a big difference.”

Her new status as a “leaper” has Bracey thinking ahead, too.

“Her goal is to dunk a tennis ball by summer,” Burt Barker said. “She’s getting close. She’ll be there, I think, if she keeps working.”

Bucksport’s Cyr jumps, jives, wails

Bands are a fixture during tournament week, but the Bucksport High musicians like to spice up their pre-game performances a bit.

Enter Dan Cyr, a senior who serves as the band’s president.

Cyr plays the trombone, but on Saturday he took a microphone and sang “Jump, Jive An’ Wail” -a Brian Setzer Orchestra hit – as his friends accompanied him on their instruments.

“The goal of our band is to just have fun,” Cyr said. “We like to do songs that the crowd has fun with.”

They succeeded, and Cyr – who also sang the song at the tourney as a junior – received a nice ovation after his effort.

“I love singing it here because there’s so many people,” Cyr said. “I like to have fun. I’m a little bit of a ham.”