BANGOR – The George Stevens Academy boys basketball team knew that it had to use its height advantage against a much smaller, quicker Dexter team.

The No. 2 Eagles of Blue Hill clogged the paint with Sam Bridges and Colin Henry, preventing the No. 3 Tigers from getting any sort of penetration inside en route to a 40-30 Eastern Maine Class C semifinal win at the Bangor Auditorium Friday afternoon.

GSA will face top-ranked Calais in tonight’s 8:35 Eastern Maine final.

The Eagles jumped out to a 7-0 lead, holding Dexter without a field goal through the game’s first five minutes, until Adam Eastman hit a 3-pointer from the right wing.

The inside play on both ends of Bridges and Henry, who both stand 6-foot-4, was the difference for George Stevens. Defensively, the Eagles played straight-up man most of the way with Bridges and Henry jumping out on any Dexter ballhandler who would try to penetrate inside.

“We had to stop them from driving to the hoop and stop them from shooting outside,” said Bridges, who finished with 11 points and six rebounds.

The Eagles led by as many as seven in the second half, a deficit which Dexter trimmed to four near the end of the third quarter. Bridges’ put-back layup at the buzzer started a 9-2 run which gave GSA its largest lead of the game at 11 with 3:27 left to play, generating easy buckets within 10 feet and second-chance opportunities.

“They crash really hard. We just knew that we had to come out hard and stop them,” Bridges said. “And that’s what we did. We pounded it inside ’cause they couldn’t match up with us.”

“We needed to play good ‘D.’ I knew they were gonna play good ‘D’ against us,” Eagles coach Dwayne Carter said. “Defense is what wins championships. We were trying to control what we did. We didn’t want them to get into the paint.”

Defensively, GSA made Dexter’s top two scorers, Ryan Martin and Nick Peirce, work hard for their shots and not allow them to get inside the paint.

“They did a very nice job defensively and taking away Ryan Martin and Nick Peirce,” Tigers coach Peter Murray said. “They defended them both very well all game long.”

Henry finished with 11 points for the Eagles. Martin paced Dexter with 12 points, while Peirce tallied eight points and six boards.

EAGLES 40, TIGERS 30

Dexter (16-4) Geo. Stevens (16-4)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

A. Wodmn 1 3 0 0 2 Owen 2 9 7

Lavin 0 1 0 0 0 Astbury 0 0 0

Stewart 0 0 0 0 0 Wessel 2 3 5

Robinson 0 1 1 2 1 Peake 1 3 3

Spizucco 0 0 0 0 0 Gray 0 7 1

N. Peirce 3 9 1 2 8 Henry 3 4 11

B. Wodmn 1 5 0 0 2 Smith 1 1 2

Eastman 1 3 0 0 3 Bridges 5 10 11

Martin 6 14 0 1 12 Dow 0 0 0

Cote 1 1 0 0 2 Lawson 0 0 0 0

Gordon 0 1 0 0

Totals 13 37 2 5 30 Totals 14 38 10 21 40

Dexter 4 8 19 30

George Stevens 9 17 25 40

3-pt. goals – Dexter (2-10): N. Peirce 1-2, Eastman 1-2, Martin 0-3, A. Woodman 0-2, Lavin 0-1; George Stevens (2-4): Owen 1-3, Wessel 1-1