BANGOR – If you looked at the seedings, the top-ranked Bangor boys basketball team had a seemingly easy path to the Eastern Maine Class A final: a quarterfinal against No. 9 Hampden Academy to set up a semifinal against the winner of No. 12 Leavitt and No. 13 Brewer.

So much for seedings.

The upset-minded Broncos outscored the Rams 20-12 in the fourth quarter Saturday afternoon and walked out of the Bangor Auditorium with a 44-40 win.

“Unreal,” Hamden Academy senior guard Blaine Meehan said outside his team’s locker room. “This was just an all-around team effort, everyone did what they were supposed to do.”

Bangor Coach Roger Reed said, “I’ll tell you what, this is not a number nine seed. I’ve said right along that they are the best team in this tournament besides us.”

The Broncos move on to Friday’s 8:35 p.m. semifinal round against Brewer, a 54-46 winner over Leavitt of Turner Center.

The Rams and Broncos had played three times in the regular season. Bangor won each time, including twice at Hampden.

“They were up to the task today,” Reed said. “Their defense was very good, I tip my hat to them.”

In a slow-paced, defense-driven first half, the Rams leaned heavily on junior Mark Socoby, who scored 13 of his game-high 24 points in the first two quarters.

“You can’t stop him, you just hope he misses some shots,” Hampden coach Russ Bartlett said. “He’s going to score, but we wanted to make sure we kept him off the glass.”

Hampden trailed by as much as eight points in the first half but cut Bangor’s lead to 21-17 at the break. Six-foot-10 center Jordan Cook kept the Broncos close with eight first-half points.

“We struggled offensively in the first half, but, to their credit, they played good defense,” Bartlett said.

Hampden shut down Socoby in the third quarter and finally started to figure out Bangor’s zone defense in the fourth quarter.

The Broncos started the fourth with an 8-3 run – capped by a pair of free throws from Josh McNutt – to take their first lead since early in the first quarter.

Hampden held onto that lead, even with the late-game heroics of Socoby, who scored his team’s final nine points.

“We knew if we made our shots, we could come away with a victory,” Meehan said. “It took us awhile, but they started to fall at the end.”

Meehan hit two huge jumpers during Hampden’s 8-3 run and finished with a team-high 12 points.

“I said to Blaine, we need you to step up and hit some shots for us,” Bartlett said. “The light came on and he hit two huge buckets for us.”

Cook added 11 and Jay Uhrin eight for the Broncos.

Socoby led his team with 24 points and nine rebounds. Only two other Rams – Aaron Gallant (nine points) and Andrew Trundy (seven) – scored.

“We had some people that didn’t score today that normally give us a boost,” Reed said.

Hampden now knows first hand that seedings don’t mean anything come tourney time.

“The entire tournament, I’ve never seen anything like it, it’s all upsets,” Meehan said. “Just to have a chance to go to the Eastern Maine finals is huge.”

BRONCOS 44, RAMS 40

Hampden Acad. (16-4) Bangor (17-2)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Silver 3 3 0 0 6 Heath 0 4 0

Meehan 5 9 2 3 12 Aa. Gallant 4 13 1 3 9

Moran 0 3 0 0 0 Socoby 8 15 24

McNutt 0 4 5 8 5 Derosa 0 0 0

Uhrin 4 14 0 0 8 Al. Gallant 0 0

McCue 0 7 2 2 2 Chase 0 0 0

Cook 5 8 1 3 11 Mead 0 2 0 0

Trundy 3 4 1 7

Totals 17 48 10 16 44 Totals 15 43 13 40

Hampden Academy 8 17 24 44

Bangor 11 21 28 40

3-pt. goals – Bangor: Socoby 2