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BANGOR – Ralph Mims’ Saturday night at the Bangor Auditorium began modestly – a scoreless first quarter with a couple of turnovers thrown in as he sought to force his will on the Eastern Maine Class A boys basketball final.
By the time the evening ended, the Brunswick High guard had all the adornments of an epic performance – the championship plaque in one hand, the game ball in the other hand, and a net around his neck.
They were spoils of victory well earned, for his performance over the last three quarters was the stuff of Maine high school basketball legend and enough to lift the Dragons to a 54-42 victory over defending state champion Bangor.
The win advances 20-1 Brunswick to Saturday night’s state final against Western A champion Portland at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland. Bangor, which lost four of its first five games this season, finished with a 16-6 record.
The 6-foot-3 Mims, the object of many a Division I recruiter’s desire and a finalist for the 2004 Mr. Basketball award, simply went off, scoring 41 points, all over the final three quarters.
No teammate scored in the second and third quarters, as Mims amassed 34 consecutive Brunswick points during a span of 24 minutes, 39 seconds until his most spectacular moment of the game, a dribble-penetration through four Bangor defenders to feed Justin Gauvin for a layup that gave the Dragons a 47-38 lead with 1:51 left in the game.
“They were very patient getting the ball to him, and we just didn’t have the answers tonight,” said Bangor coach Roger Reed. “He’s very good off the dribble, and once he got going in the open floor and created some open space, he was very, very tough.”
Mims’ points came in every conceivable fashion: pull-up jumpers in the lane, put-backs after grabbing offensive rebounds, fast-break points off turnovers, two 3-pointers, and 13 free throws – 12 in the fourth quarter as Brunswick took control of the game.
“He’s such a great player,” said 6-0 Bangor junior Aaron Gallant, who one night after limiting 6-4 Mr. Basketball finalist Corey Tielinen to two points in Bangor’s 50-26 semifinal win, gamely tried to defend against the taller Mims with help from his teammates.
“I didn’t want to let him shoot the 3s, so I tried to get up in his face. But he’s so strong he was able to get to the middle. He really broke us down tonight,” said Gallant.
Mims also was a catalyst of Brunswick’s man-to-man defense, which focused its attention on Bangor’s outside shooters.
Bangor shot 36 percent from the field overall, but just 20 percent (3 of 15) from beyond the 3-point arc.
“We really needed to buckle down defensively because they have such great perimeter shooters,” Brunswick coach Todd Hanson said. “We wanted to make sure that we protected the arc and really defend their 3-point shooters.”
Senior forward P.J. Dowe, working inside the Brunswick defense, led Bangor with 13 points and six rebounds, scoring eight points in the second quarter to stake Bangor to a 23-21 halftime lead. Gallant and junior point guard Jordan Heath each added nine points.
Perhaps Mims’ outburst wasn’t all that surprising, given that he saw limited playing time due to foul trouble a night earlier as Brunswick outlasted Cony of Augusta 75-65 in the semifinals.
“I told my fellows that I’m not really concerned about how many points I score,” said Mims, who also had 15 rebounds and five steals. “As long as we get out of here with a ‘W,’ that’s all I’m concerned about.
“I told my teammates that I messed up last night, I fouled out, and I had to build off that. Even though I scored a lot of points, tonight we came out and played as a team.”
Mims didn’t break loose until being shifted from the point of the offense to the wing after intermission in order to prevent Bangor from double-teaming him as it did so successfully a year ago when the Rams knocked off the Dragons 62-48 in the regional final.
“Bangor’s so efficient offensively that we tried to take a page out of their playbook in the second half,” Hanson said. “In the first half Ralph was at the point, and he’d come down and we didn’t make them play defense, so we moved Gauvin to the point and Ralph to the off-guard in order to play a little more like Bangor offensively and make their defense have to work more.
“I think we did that a little bit, but what it really did was give Ralph a little more space coming off the wing to find a seam so he could score.”
And score he did, 31 points after intermission, 15 in the third quarter as Brunswick turned a 23-21 halftime deficit into a 36-32 lead.
That lead change also coincided with Brunswick’s use of a 1-2-1-1 full-court press in the second half. After committing only four turnovers in the first two periods, Bangor had six giveaways in the third quarter, with Mims making the Rams pay at the other end.
“We wanted to up-tempo them a little because they’re so efficient offensively that they lull you to sleep,” Hanson said. “We wanted to make them play a little faster.”
Neither team had much luck offensively early in the fourth quarter, but Gauvin fed Mims in the low post for a three-point play after Brunswick had begun to work the clock to extend the Dragons’ lead to 43-36 with 2:47 left.
Bangor got no closer than six points the rest of the way, as Mims fed Gauvin for the game-breaking layup and made 9 of 13 from the line over the final 2:22.
“I felt very, very confident going into this game,” Hanson said, “because Ralph played half a game last night and scored 11 points, and he’s a real tough man to hold down twice.”
DRAGONS 54, RAMS 42
Bangor (16-6) Brunswick (20-1)
Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP
Heath 4 14 0 0 9 Lemont 0 1 0
Aa. Gallant 3 13 3 6 9 Kaplan 1 2 2
Dowe 5 7 3 6 13 Mims 13 26 13 19 41
Astle 2 5 1 2 7 Gauvin 3 9 7
Prentiss 1 3 0 1 2 Scully 0 1 2
DeRosa 1 3 0 0 2 Eichinger 0 0
St. John 0 0 0 0 0 Warren 1 2 2
Totals 16 45 7 15 42 Totals 18 43 15 21 54
Bangor 8 23 32 42
Brunswick 11 21 36 52
3-pt. goals ? Bangor (3-15): Astle 2-5, Heath 1-8, Aa. Gallant 0-1, DeRosa 0-1; Brunswick (3-12): Mims 2-7, Gauvin 1-3, Lemont 0-1, Eichinger 0-1
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