BANGOR – Mount Desert Island coach Burt Barker hasn’t been happy with his team’s shooting lately – so much so that when his name came up in a conversation he overheard Saturday after the Trojans picked up their second straight Eastern Maine title, he assumed the topic of conversation.

“Oh, about how we haven’t made an outside shot for months?” Barker said with a smile, aiming the comment at guards Shelley Gott and his daughter Bracey Barker, who were standing near the coach. “Well, we didn’t change that today.”

Gott piped up quickly. “I had one,” she said emphatically. “A baseline jumper.”

True, Barker agreed. But he saw something else he liked from Gott in the second half of the matchup against Houlton.

“I’ll take five baskets [in] the paint second half anytime from you, Shelley,” he responded to laughs.

Gott put in 14 second-half points en route to 18 in the game and the Trojans buried the Shiretowners in the third quarter for a 58-37 victory over the Shiretowners Saturday afternoon in the regional final at the Bangor Auditorium.

MDI earned a berth in the state final against Gray-New Gloucester, which picked up the Western Maine title Friday night. The teams will meet at 7:05 p.m. Friday at the Bangor Auditorium. The Trojans-Patriots game is a rematch of last year’s final, won by MDI.

Gott, a deadly 3-point shooter, was 2-for-10 in the first half but 5-for-6 in the second.

“We went to a high-low offense in the second half that got Shelley a chance to pass to Tanya [Kane, a forward] and Bracey and we worked that,” Burt Barker said. “We worked kind of a strong-side thing and then when we went at them man-to-man we had mismatches and took advantage of them.”

Houlton came out of its 2-3 zone midway through the third quarter and MDI outscored Houlton 15-5 in the period.

Gott opened the quarter with two straight baskets and Leah Joy put in a Bracey Barker pass as the Trojans went from a shaky two-point halftime lead to an eight-point advantage.

Houlton’s Sarah Beasley answered with a 3-pointer but Barker hit a jumper to hang onto a 30-23 lead.

“Once they pulled it out we were sort of dead in the water,” Houlton coach Jerry Tweedie said. “It’s tough for us to match up man-to-man with them and they’re a very good team. Today their shots were going much better than they were the other day for them and we knew that whichever team could come out and hit some shots would have a huge advantage.”

MDI got a big effort from its bench and other starters who don’t normally look to score. Substitute Jenna Gordius hit a key 3-pointer that erased a 15-14 Houlton lead in the second quarter, and starting guard Kara Horton (13 points) knocked down another 3-pointer one minute later for a 20-15 lead, MDI’s biggest advantage to that point in the game.

“[Gordius] played smart, she played intense and that’s what we need from our bench,” Bracey Barker said. “That got us going. The intensity overall really helped us to bring that lead up.”

Horton had the assist on a Gordius basket during a big stretch in the fourth quarter in which the Trojans went from an 11-point lead to a 15-point lead in less than a minute. Horton started the run off a Barker pass, followed by a Gordius score. Seven seconds later Barker stole the ball in the backcourt and put it in for a 47-32 lead.

“I think in order to win big games you have to have the whole team play together,” Horton said. “It wasn’t necessarily individual players scoring more, it was that for once we were playing together.”

TROJANS 58, SHIRETOWNERS 37

Houlton (17-5) MDI girls (21-1)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Guy 0 1 0 0 0 Boisvert 1 1 2

Beasley 6 13 1 1 15 Gordius 3 3 7

Cleary 3 14 0 0 9 Joy 1 3 2

Goodrich 0 0 0 0 0 Horton 6 6 13

Peters 0 0 0 0 0 Joseph 0 1 0

Thompson 0 0 0 1 0 Willson 1 1 2

Brown 1 1 1 1 3 Gott 7 17 18

Cole 1 4 0 0 2 Barker 3 10 2 8

Henderson 0 0 0 0 0 Kane 3 4 6

Lenentine 0 0 0 2 0 Norwood 0 0 0

Socoby 2 6 2 2 6

Botting 1 2 0 0 2

Totals 14 41 4 7 37 Totals 25 46 12 58

Houlton 5 20 25 37

Mount Desert Island 6 22 37 58

3-pt. goals: Houlton (5-19): Cleary 3-12, Beasley 2-5, Socoby 0-2; MDI (2-10): Gordius 1-1, Horton 1-1, Barker 0-3, Gott 0-5