Back when Stephanie Gagnon was playing basketball for Madawaska High, the Easton girls basketball team was mired in a 41/2-year, 83-game winless streak.

So Gagnon remembers the day that the Bears finally won a game – they beat a team from the Liberty School of Blue Hill 47-14 – and got a parade into town to celebrate the victory.

Easton hasn’t had a lot of success since that win, but the Bears seem to have turned things around this winter. At 6-7, Easton has won more games this season than it has in the last five years combined.

“We have a group of girls who get along,” said senior Nina Alexander, who has played on the varsity squad for four years. “We’re playing together as a team. We don’t have one person who can carry the team so we all have to work together.”

The Bears’ last winning season was a 12-6 effort in 1991-92 and their last tournament appearance was the previous year (they went 9-9 and lost to Southern Aroostook of Dyer Brook 67-36 in the quarterfinals). Their last tourney win came in 1988, when No. 2 Easton beat No. 7 Greenville 42-35.

Easton logged one of the program’s biggest wins earlier this season with a 38-36 victory over rival Central Aroostook of nearby Mars Hill. Gagnon said it was the Bears’ first win over the Panthers in 16 years.

“People who weren’t at the game were like, no way, you didn’t beat them,” said Alexander, a shooting guard who averages 20-25 points per game. “But then they saw the score on TV. It’s nice to say, no, we really did beat them.”

Gagnon, who recently graduated from UMaine-Presque Isle and is in her first season coaching the team, said the first thing she had to work on with the Bears was confidence.

It’s something she had to learn, too, because Madawaska had its share of losing seasons while she played for the Owls.

“Even for me it was a new thing to be on the successful end,” she said. “I had these girls in soccer, too, and we didn’t have a great season, but one thing about them is they have a really good work ethic. They keep working no matter if they’re down two points or 30 points.”

And they’re young, too. The only other senior is guard-forward Brittany Hickey. Point guard Kassie Lovely, who hit a big 3-pointer and two clutch free throws in a 64-61 win over Greater Houlton Christian Academy, is only a sophomore.

The Easton girls know they have a ways to go to make the tournament this year – although the Bears were No. 4 in last week’s Eastern Maine Class D Heal Point standings, they’ve played more games than most teams and about 61/2 points separate the teams ranked Nos. 4-10. With the top 14 teams making the tourney, they’ll almost definitely be playing at least a preliminary game.

They’ll have a chance in the next four games with matchups against Central Aroostook, Washburn, Wisdom of St. Agatha and Class C Limestone.

The Bears played Washburn Monday night. The Beavers won the teams’ first matchup 43-36, but Gagnon said her team missed 12 free throws.

“I saw at the start of the season that this was a team that had the potential to upset somebody,” Gagnon said. “I know in my mind we can beat three of those teams, but our goal is to win four out of five.”

MDI girls continue to roll

The topsy-turvy nature of Eastern Maine Class B girls basketball continued Friday night as Mount Desert Island edged Hermon 42-41.

The Trojans have now won six straight and should climb even higher in the Heal Point standings thanks to the win over the Hawks, who were 9-2 before the loss and ranked No. 5 in last week’s standings.

Kelsey Stratton provided the winning margin as the sophomore forward made two free throws with less than 10 seconds left to hold off Hermon and Cassie White, who made a 3-pointer at the buzzer.

Stratton scored 18 points.

The win comes a week after the Trojans’ 56-55 victory over top-ranked Presque Isle, a double-overtime win that handed the Wildcats their first loss of the season.

MDI hasn’t lost a game since Dec. 28 when the Trojans fell to Foxcroft 37-26. Since then they’ve beaten Caribou, Orono, Bucksport and Class C Searsport along with Hermon and Presque Isle. MDI hosts Orono tonight at 7.

Jessica Bloch can be reached at 990-8193, 1-800-310-8600 or jbloch@bangordailynews.net.