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BANGOR – The little team that could, did it again.
Outsized for the umpteenth time, the Bangor boys basketball team proved that it’s the size of the heart that matters Saturday night at the Bangor Auditorium when the Rams beat Cheverus of Portland 48-43 in overtime to win the Class A state championship.
The Rams are used to being the smaller team and were again Saturday night. The Stags front line included Mr. Maine Basketball finalist Jeff Holmes. The 6-foot-5 senior was taller by 2 inches than Bangor’s tallest player, 6-3 Kevin Flynn, and 6 inches taller than the player who guarded him much of the night – 5-11 junior Mike Prentiss.
Holmes scored 16 points and grabbed 11 rebounds. If not for a tremendous defensive effort by both Flynn and Prentiss, Holmes’ point total might have been significantly higher.
And the Rams, 21-1, have a Mr. Basketball candidate of their own in senior point guard Zak Ray and it was Ray who did in the Stags.
Ray hit all four of his free throws in overtime when Bangor outscored Cheverus 7-2.
He also made a sensational heads-up play when he went up for a rebound of a Cheverus miss and instead of grabbing the ball, slapped it into the backcourt. The play came with two taller Cheverus players in position to rebound the ball and put it back for a basket.
“They were hitting the boards really hard,” Ray said of Cheverus, which outrebounded Bangor 25-12. “I knew if I tried to grab it, they’d get a hand on it. So, the first thing that came to mind was tipping it out and hitting it as hard as I could.”
Bangor coach Roger Reed, whose team won its sixth state championship and third in four years since he took over the program in 1985, recognized the significance of Ray’s play.
“That was very smart. He knew that we weren’t in a position to rebound it. So he just knocked it away,” Reed said.
The Rams and Stags battled every possession and the game was on the line on the final possession of regulation play.
Cheverus, 19-3, had the ball off a Bangor turnover with 35 seconds remaining and played for the final shot. Holmes was not involved in the play and point guard Austin DeAngelis ended up attempting an off-balance 3-pointer that came up short off the front of the rim.
“[The play] was designed for [Holmes] in the lane and they broke it up,” Cheverus coach Bob Brown said. “The play we ran was for him to roll to the basket and it never got there.”
Instead, the Rams had life, and after DeAngelis made a bucket to give the Stags the lead early in overtime, the Rams countered with a 3-pointer by senior Wesley Day and Ray’s free throws. The first pair of free throws came when Ray showed that he has smarts to go along with talent.
With Bangor in possession of the ball and 1:31 remaining, Ray felt the presence of a defender and came to a stop and took a hit from behind from Cheverus 6-3 senior Andrew Ward, who played a superb game.
“Just give them credit. It was a hard-fought game,” a disappointed Ward said. “I think it was Wes Day and Zak Ray, everybody on that team contributed. They’re a great team.”
Cheverus appeared ready to run the Rams out of the building early on when they built an 11-4 lead in the first quarter. But the Rams avoided the early knockout punch and came back with a 3-pointer from sophomore Aaron Gallant, who finished with nine points, and Ray followed with a floater in the lane and a pair of free throws to tie the score at quarter’s end.
Ray had 15 points (including 8-for-8 from the free-throw line), five rebounds, four assists, and four steals in the game.
Cheverus’ matchup zone gave Bangor fits throughout much of the game. But the Rams managed to find enough holes in the second half to free up Day (nine points) and sophomore Jordan Heath (nine points) for open looks from 3-point range.
The Rams looked to have put enough distance between themselves and the Stags to win the game midway through the fourth quarter when they went up 39-34 on a Heath 3-pointer 22-feet straight away from the basket with a defender running at him.
“It always feels good when they start to drop. When you’re open like that, you always like to make the shot and luckily it went down,” Heath said.
But the Stags fought back on a hoop and a 3-pointer from junior Mac Simpson and the game went to overtime. Simpson finished with 10 points.
Both teams shot remarkably well considering the defenses they were facing. The Stags, led by Holmes’ 7-for-9 effort from the floor, were 18-of-36, while Bangor hit on 16-of-35, including 8-of-15 from beyond the 3-point-arc.
DeAngelis had eight points for the Stags while Ward had seven.
RAMS 48, STAGS 43 (OT)
Cheverus (19-3) Bangor (21-1)
Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP
Doughty 0 1 0 0 0 Heath 3 6 9
Reinheimer 0 1 0 0 0 Ray 3 7 15
DeAngelis 4 7 0 0 8 Gallant 4 10 9
Simpson 3 8 2 2 10 Dowe 0 0 0
Schober 1 2 0 0 2 Day 3 8 9
Ward 3 8 0 0 7 Prentiss 3 4 6
Holmes 7 9 2 4 16 Flynn 0 0 0
Totals 18 36 4 6 43 Totals 16 35 48
Cheverus 11 20 33 41 43
Bangor 11 20 34 41 48
3-pt. goals ? Cheverus (3-8): Simpson 2-4, Ward 1-2, Reinheimer 0-1, Schober 0-1; Bangor (8-15): Heath 3-5, Day 3-7, Gallant 1-1, Ray 1-2
Attendance: 3,654
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