BANGOR – It was hard to imagine, Jay Carlsen conceded, this year’s Camden Hills girls basketball team making it all the way through the Eastern Maine Class B tournament.

Especially with the Windjammers’ six losses in the regular season, most of which came in the last quarter of their games, and the No. 8 ranking going into the tournament.

“I felt we were good enough to win a game,” Carlsen said after his Windjammers earned a 39-34 victory over No. 6 Hermon in Saturday afternoon’s regional final. “I didn’t know if we were good enough to win three.”

But Camden Hills proved to be good enough against the Hawks and the rest of the tourney field. After knocking off No. 1 Presque Isle in the quarterfinals and then No. 4 Caribou in the semis, the Windjammers are headed to their first Class B state title game since 2000.

Camden Hills, now 16-6, will face Western Maine champion Greely of Cumberland Center Friday night in a 7:35 game at the Bangor Auditorium.

Junior Samantha Wiley led the Windjammers with 12 points, including four key free throws in the final 24 seconds.

Camden Hills had gone into a slowdown, spread offense with about 2:45 left in the game and top scorer Marianne Croce on the bench with her fifth foul.

The Windjammers had a 32-29 lead with a little more than a minute left. Wiley made two free throws and freshman Kayla Gushee hit one for a six-point lead.

Hermon’s Cassie White scored off a rebound with about 27 seconds left and Wiley responded with two free throws, but Hermon’s Shannon Wiggin drained a 3-pointer with about 20 seconds remaining to make it a 3-point game.

Wiley came back with two more free throws as Hawk senior guard Shannon Dobbins fouled out with 16 seconds left.

“We wanted to attack the basket and get to the foul line and get layups,” Carlsen said. “We had the right girl at the foul line at the end, Sam, and Morgan [Hart] had two. We’ve been just good enough at the end of games. We gutted it out.”

The Windjammers said they were a bit worried with Croce on the bench late.

“It goes through your mind. Oh no, what are we going to do?” said Wiley, who played down the stretch with four fouls. “She’s one of our best foul shooters. But we got girls in there, settled down, we knew it was all a mental thing.”

Camden Hills had a 10-4 lead in the second quarter, but the Hawks would go on a 7-0 run later in the period to take a 14-12 lead.

Wiley ended that with a 23-footer from the top of the key with less than 40 seconds left. The Hawks would get within two points later in the game but couldn’t break through.

“We were trying to settle down with the ball, and when we did that we did good, but I think they just got in our heads a little,” Hermon’s Dobbins said. “I didn’t feel like we were in control of the game.”

The Windjammers stayed with their man-to-man press for most of the game and did a good job shutting down the Hawks’ inside game, which had propelled them through the tourney.

But Camden Hills had faced big players against Caribou.

“Those [Hermon] girls inside are incredible post players,” said senior forward Claire Neville, who had a game-high 13 rebounds. “We’ve worked the last week or so defending that, and we defended it the same way that we defended the Caribou girls, and it worked out the whole night.”

Croce guarded Hermon standout Marissa McLeod, who scored a team-high nine points. Hermon forwards Wiggin and Malerie Hall each had seven rebounds.

Hart chipped in with 10 points for Camden Hills. Gushee and Kristen Richards played key minutes in the fourth as Croce sat on the bench.

WINDJAMMERS 39, HAWKS 34

Camden Hills (16-6) Hermon (17-5)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Wiley 3 14 4 5 12 McLeod 4 13 9

Freisland 0 0 0 0 0 Dobbins 1 5 3

Smith 0 0 0 0 0 White 3 7 7

Gushee 2 6 2 2 6 Wiggin 1 11 5

Neville 1 2 1 3 3 Hall 4 5 8

Richards 1 2 0 0 2 Macdonald 1 2

Hart 3 6 2 2 10 Gibson 0 0 0 0

Croce 2 7 1 2 6

Totals 12 37 10 14 39 14 43 34

Camden Hills 8 15 28 39

Hermon 4 14 26 34

3-pt. goals ? Camden Hills (5-16): Hart 2-3, Wiley 2-7, Croce 1-2, Gushee 0-4; Hermon (3-11): Wiggin 1-1, Dobbins 1-3, McLeod 1-5, White 0-1, Macdonald 0-1