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BANGOR – Erskine Academy has been open since 1883.
Finally it has a gold ball.
Senior swingman Matt Donar scored 20 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, and junior point guard Darrell Haskell added 19 points as the Eagles from South China shut down Gorham 59-42 Friday night in the state Class B boys basketball final at the Bangor Auditorium.
“This is the best feeling in the world,” said Haskell, who shot 5 of 7 from beyond the 3-point arc. “I’ve never felt like this before.”
Erskine won its first-ever state championship with hustle and defense, using a 1-2-2 press and matchup zone to force 22 Gorham turnovers and prevent the Rams from establishing any consistency in its half-court offense.
“We missed too many shots around the basket, and that allowed them to play with confidence,” said Gorham coach Kevin Jenkins, “and they’re a very good team.
“You can see that they’ve played together a very long time. I was impressed with how hard Erskine Academy played. We pride ourselves on playing hard, but they played harder than we did. It’s as simple as that.”
Junior forward Josh Jones fought off early foul trouble to add eight points and 10 rebounds for Erskine, while senior Kevin Haskell was a stout presence in the middle of the Eagles’ defense and a reliable outlet when Gorham’s defense trapped one of his teammates with the ball.
“Rebounds off free throws, tipped balls, we did all the little things that we needed to do win the game,” said Erskine coach Tim Bonsant.
About the only area where the Eagles were lacking was on the free-throw line, where they made 11 of 27 attempts.
But their defense was crisp enough so that even that was an advantage, as Gorham managed just seven points from the line on 11 tries.
“They were very quick to the ball,” said Jenkins. “They got all kinds of loose balls. They swarmed around the ball, with hands all over the place. They play the way we try to play, but they do it a little better than we do.”
Kurt Randall, a 6-foot-7 senior center, and 6-3 senior forward Justin Brown each scored 11 points for Gorham, with Randall grabbing a team-best seven rebounds.
Erskine (19-3) trailed only once in this contest, at 3-2 on a 3-pointer by Brown less than a minute into the game.
By the end of the first quarter, the Eagles’ press had forced seven Gorham turnovers, and Darrell Haskell had scored eight points – including two 3-pointers – as Erskine moved out to a 20-9 lead.
Gorham was playing catch-up the rest of the way, but it was a game the Rams would not win.
“When Darrell’s making the outside shot, it opens the inside game,” said Donar. “They had to come out on him, so later on we made a few passes and got some wide-open layups.”
The Rams (19-3) did close within 20-16 on a three-point play by Tim Atwood with 5:52 left in the second quarter, but Erskine – playing without Jones for the last 12 minutes of the half – was able to maintain a slight margin and took a 29-23 lead into intermission.
Gorham closed within four points once more, at 37-33 on a Matt Trask layup midway through the third quarter, but Erskine moved back to a double-digit lead early in the fourth quarter. The Rams simply couldn’t crack through the Eagles’ defense often enough to get closer than seven points down the stretch.
Donar was Erskine’s offensive leader late in the game. The two-time Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class B Player of the Year scored 14 points after intermission, 10 in the fourth quarter.
“I’m just so happy for the kids, and happy for the community,” said Bonsant, a 1987 Erskine graduate. “We have seven towns that send students to the school. The school’s been there since 1883, and it’s never won a gold ball until now, 121 years later.”
EAGLES 59, RAMS 42
Gorham (19-3) Erskine Academy (19-3)
Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP
Atwood 1 5 1 1 3 Peterson 0 0
Thayer 2 12 3 6 7 Dow 0 0 0
Bass 0 1 0 0 0 Childs 2 11 0 5
Poulin 0 2 0 0 0 Lyford 0 0 0
Ballantyne 0 0 0 0 0 Bagdoyon 0 0
Burnheimer 0 0 0 0 0 D. Haskell 7 12 0 0 19
Wise 0 0 0 0 0 Heath 0 0 1 1
Trask 3 3 0 0 6 Jones 4 8 8
Griffin 0 3 0 0 0 Dennison 0 0
Tanguay 1 1 0 0 2 Leibowitz 1 3
Randall 5 9 1 2 11 K. Haskell 0 2
Brown 3 9 2 2 11 Kendall 0 0 0
MacKenzie 1 1 0 0 2 Donar 7 13 20
Manchester 0 1 0 0 0 Fleming 0 0 1
Leconte 0 1 0 0 0
Totals 16 48 7 11 42 Totals 21 51 11 27 59
Gorham 9 23 35 42
Erskine Academy 20 29 41 59
3-pt. goals ? Gorham (3-17): Brown 3-8, Griffin 0-1, Thayer 0-2, Poulin 0-2, Atwood 0-4; Erskine (6-17): D. Haskell 5-7, Childs 1-7, K. Haskell 0-1, Donar 0-2
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