BANGOR – They say you should learn more from your losses than your wins.

Camden Hills coach Jeff Hart isn’t really sure who “they” are, but he learned a big lesson in a big loss eight years ago and that lesson helped his Windjammers immensely Saturday afternoon.

Hart’s experienced team eschewed its trademark full-court pressing defensive attack in deference to the abilities of Bucksport star Jason Harvey, played the Golden Bucks straight up with a lot of attention on Harvey, and hit the boards hard in the second half to take their second straight Eastern Maine Class B championship with a 67-58 victory.

The 21-1 defending state champions earned the program’s fifth regional title in nine years and a rematch with three-time defending West champ Gorham in Friday’s 9 p.m. state game at the Bangor Auditorium.

Hart says they owe it all to the experience of the 1994 state game, Hart’s first with Camden.

“We really did some different things today because of Harvey. To me, he’s an Andy Bedard-type player and you have to do something different,” said Hart, now in his 20th season. “In 1994, we thought if he got 30 or so and we shut everybody else down, they wouldn’t beat us. I was wrong.

“He got 53 and we lost. I decided right after that game that if I was in that situation like that again, we’d do something different.”

So he did. The ‘Jammers junked their beloved press and alternated top defenders Peter Moro and Tyler Warren on Bucksport’s explosive senior guard.

“We really didn’t press tonight because we decided we didn’t want to show him the open floor, which can make it a little scary,” Hart said. “We did things like making him pass it and not letting him get it back. He had to work hard for what he got, but he’s a warrior.”

Moro put in the bulk of time on Harvey. Despite Harvey’s 30-point game, Moro turned in a great effort as Harvey was in foul trouble and didn’t get in a scoring rhythm until it was a bit too late for Bucksport.

“We just couldn’t really seem to find him open too often,” said Dave Gonyar, coach of the 19-3 Bucks. “We weren’t getting too many open looks by anyone.”

The game was tight all through the first half. Bucksport scored the first six points of the second half to take a 33-27 lead, but Camden answered with seven straight. The fourth tie in a five-minute span was followed by a game-turning 9-0 Camden run in which freshman Tim Stammen scored seven straight points – five off rebounds and all from the paint.

“We play with a lot of poise because we’ve been here a bunch of times,” said Warren, who had 17 points and seven rebounds. “That run in the third quarter when Tim got some offensive rebounds made the difference.”

The Bucks would cut the lead to four points with seven minutes left, but that was as close as they’d get as the ‘Jammers slowed the pace and forced them to foul. Harvey (seven rebounds, three assists, two steals) had 13 points in the last six minutes, but it wasn’t enough as Camden hit 15 of 17 foul shots in the same time span to put it away.

Foul trouble and solid defense by Warren and Troy Gabriele held Bucks sharpshooters Corey Guilford and Kyle Mercer to five and nine points, respectively.

Gabriele had 17 points plus three steals, and Grant Lippman had nine points and nine rebounds to complement Camden’s team effort.

“Everybody’s been saying all season we’ve just been using smoke and mirrors and that’s baloney,” said Lippman. “What we’ve been doing is smoking everybody.”

Camden was edged 12-11 by Bucksport on the offensive boards, but held a 35-31 overall advantage. Turnovers were virtually even as Camden had 17 and Bucksport 19.

WINDJAMMERS 67, GOLDEN BUCKS 58

Bucksport (19-3) Camden Hills (21-1)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

McHale 0 0 0 0 0 Davis 0 0 0

Cain 0 0 0 0 0 Crupi 0 1 0 0

Beeson 0 0 0 0 0 May 0 1 2

Sheehan 1 4 1 2 3 Gabriele 7 11 0 0 17

Mercer 4 6 0 0 9 Moro 4 9 9

Knight 0 1 0 0 0 Wood 0 0 2

Allard 0 0 0 0 0 T.Stammen 3 7

Cyr 0 0 0 0 0 Warren 3 13 10 12 17

Hopkins 0 0 0 0 0 Fitzgerald 0 2

Guilford 2 12 1 1 5 O’Brien 0 0 0

Harvey 9 23 9 9 30 G.Stammen 0 0

Ogden 0 0 3 4 3 W.Dennen 0 2

Dow 2 3 2 6 6 Lippman 2 3 5 9

Sullivan 0 0 0 0 0 Massey 0 1 0

Wingate 1 1 0 1 2

Totals 19 50 16 23 58 Totals 19 48 24 29 67

Bucksport 14 27 37 58

Camden Hills 13 27 43 67

3-pt. goals: Bucksport (4-13): Harvey 3-6, Mercer 1-3, Guilford 0-4; Camden Hills (5-15): Gabriele 3-6, Moro 1-2, Warren 1-3, Crupi 0-1, G.Stammen 0-1, T.Stammen 0-2