The Maine Principals’ Association has decided to conduct a two-year experiment in which the Class A boys and girls state basketball championship games will be played in separate sessions.

Bill Fletcher, the longtime Eastern Maine basketball tournament director, said that the decision was made in order to make more tickets available to people attending the state championship games.

“The MPA’s thinking is that it would be a good idea to split them so that everybody that wanted to see the game could,” Fletcher said.

The plan for March at the Bangor Auditorium is to play the girls game at 3 p.m. with the boys game being played at 7 p.m. The games will move to the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland in 2004 and will follow the same format.

MPA basketball committee member and Presque Isle High School athletic director David Heald said that following the trial the MPA would likely look into rotating boys and girls game times.

“I would anticipate that would be considered,” Heald said.

Fletcher said that a year ago at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland, tickets were unavailable to walkup customers.

“They never sold a ticket at the door. It was a complete sellout in advance and nobody else could get in. Two years ago when Bangor played Deering [at the Bangor Auditorium], we sold it out that afternoon,” Fletcher said.

Fletcher noted that for the Bangor-Deering game in 2000, there were “a lot of people” from the Portland area who were angry that tickets were not available.

“There were not enough advance tickets, and up until the day of the game, nobody had picked to televise it [in the Portland area], and I guess the mayor of Portland got involved and found a sponsor so they could get it on TV,” Fletcher said.

Fletcher said that the Cumberland Country Civic Center can hold approximately 8,000 for basketball games while roughly 5,500 seats are sold for games at the Bangor Auditorium.

“We lose 300 to 500 seats because we have to push the bleachers back so that there is room to set up the press table and the scorers table and inbound the ball,” Fletcher said.

Fletcher said that he has stepped down as the Eastern Maine Class A tournament director. He will continue to run the “B,” “C,” and “D” tournaments. Fletcher took over as Class A tournament director in 1987.

“This will get me out of here and to Florida a week earlier than I normally do. I can get on the golf course earlier,” he laughed.

Bangor High School principal Norris Nickerson will take over as the tournament director for Class A.

Chrisos, Fortier to be honored

Bangor Christian’s David Chrisos and Rebecca Fortier will be honored Thursday night at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass., for their selection as the state’s finalists for the Wendy’s High School Heisman Award.

The evening will be hosted by former Patriots player Gino Cappelletti and former NFL player Irv Cross along with Andy Wasynuczk, the Patriots’ senior vice president and chief operating officer.

“Me and my parents are going down. We’re leaving Thursday at noon,” Chrisos said. “Rebecca will be attending, too. It will be exciting. I can’t wait to find out [who the winners are].”

More than 120 New England students who were selected from the 13,500 students nominated nationwide will be honored and the two national finalists from the region will be announced.

The national winners will be announced Dec. 15 on ESPN2-TV at 6:30 p.m.

Coaching clinic changed

The MPA has moved last Sunday’s scheduled mandatory coaching clinic for gymnastics to Dec. 1, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., at Andy Valley Gymnastics in Lewiston.

Don Perryman can be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or dperryman@bangordailynews.net