Veteran McAuley team ready Undefeated Lions return to state final

Very few of the names have changed. But for Liz Rickett, the coach of the three-time defending Western Maine champion McAuley girls basketball team, there’s one big difference between last year’s Lion squad and this year’s team.

“They’ve got another year of experience, which is the main thing,” Rickett said Wednesday. ”

The undefeated Lions of Portland will take on Eastern Maine champion Cony of Augusta at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland.

Not only is McAuley a year older, but the Lions have had another year to gel. Last season, point guard Sarah Marshall was a sophomore and had just transferred from Falmouth, while shooting guard Tricia Freeman was a junior who had come over from Scaroborough.

McAuley lost just one starter to graduation last year, so the names of the Lions’ stars and standouts are very familiar to fans who saw the team play in the state title game – a loss to Nokomis of Newport – at the Bangor Auditorium last year: Marshall, Justine Pouravelis, Freeman, Regina Champagne, Gaby Stone and Vanessa Lux. This year, Danielle Gagnon and Kara Ebrahim, a transfer from Massabesic of Waterboro are in the mix as well.

Marshall, a 5-7 junior, is the quintessential point guard: not only can she score and shoot (she leads the Lions of Portland with 18.9 points per game and is hitting 53 percent from 2-point range and almost 50 percent from the 3-point line), but she’s a smooth ballhandler who passes as well (six assists per game).

Marshall’s ability to get the ball to her teammates, or for those players to step up themselves, is often the difference in a game. Rickett said the Lions routinely see defenses designed to stop Marshall.

In a key regular-season game against Edward Little of Auburn, which went on to face McAuley in the Western Maine final, Red Eddies star Megan Myles scored 17 points and outdueled Marshall, who had just 10.

But Stone poured in 21 points in a 57-50 win.

When the two teams met in the WM final last week, Marshall burned Edward Little for 25 points in a 58-50 win.

Marshall reached the 1,000-point plateau earlier this season.

“It’s definitely a team,” Rickett said. “Sarah runs the offense and has the scoring numbers. But if you stop Sarah someone else is going to step up each night.”

Seniors Freeman, who will play for Vermont next year, and Pouravelis, who is undecided on college, are also scoring in double figures.

Freeman is a tough matchup as a 5-11 shooting guard, while the 5-11 Pouravelis has been a premier power forward in the SMAA for the past three years. Junior 6-1 center Stone and 5-11 forward Champagne also start.

Lux, also a 6-1 center, Ebrahim and Gagnon have been the top players off the bench.

“I don’t know if Cony’s come up against anyone with our size,” Rickett said.

For all that size, McAuley doesn’t have one player with big rebounding numbers. What the Lions do have is three players – Pouravelis, Lux and Stone – who are all averaging about six rebounds per game (Pouravelis is averaging about 6.5 rpg).

Rickett feels her squad has seen enough tough defense in Western Maine from teams like Edward Little and Sanford to handle Cony’s tough man defense and press.

“The difference with those teams is that they don’t have the explosive scoring that Cony has,” she said.

Defensively, McAuley plays a variety of man and zone defenses with both full- and half-court looks.

The Lions of Portland will be hungry this year – they’ve been in the past two Class A state finals and come up empty. In fact, Western Maine hasn’t won a state championship since Portland did it in 1988.