BANGOR – Three years ago Michelle Ferry tied the score and took her basketball team into overtime with her buzzer-beating shot for the Woodland Dragons in the Eastern Maine Class D final. Unfortunately, the Dragons went on to lose the regional final game that year.

Fortunately for her though, that was three years ago.

The Dragons have remained a dominant presence in the Class D ranks, but unlike Ferry’s freshman season, this year the team can celebrate victory after it beat Southern Aroostook of Dyer Brook in Saturday’s final 52-32..

“When I was a freshman I came off the bench and just gave the other post players a break when they needed it,” Ferry said.

Now as a senior starter, Ferry is still a role player, but coach Arnie Clark has upped the ante.

“I’m a post player now, but I can also play on the wings,” Ferry said.

In addition to her versatility, Ferry also carries with her leadership and the experience of playing on the Bangor Auditorium floor for so long.

And even though it was a rush to force that final game into overtime three years ago, Ferry admits that winning the finals as a senior definitely beats her individual star moment.

“As soon as we won we just knew exactly who was going to what ladder [to take down the nets] and just looking into the crowd, it was great,” Ferry said.

Long way from home

Tournament time in Maine tends to uncover great success stories hidden in our communities. Many times the trials overcome by these very special students aren’t directly related to basketball, or even athletics.

Mercedes Pezo-Vasquez, 18, of Baileyville has sat at the end of the Woodland High School bench as the team’s manager for the entire season. At the regional final game she brought her game face – she was all smiles.

A native of Peru, Pezo-Vasquez was 10 when she was bitten by a rattlesnake, an event that changed her life forever. Through a missionary project in her home country she was sent to Boston’s Shriners Hospital to receive soft tissue treatment to her leg that was “terribly damaged by the bite,” her guardian, Betty Newman said.

“She really needs to stay in the states for medical reasons. My husband and I were thinking about adopting and through the missionary we were able to take her in,” Newman said.

Pezo-Vasquez has called Baileyville home for the past seven years, residing with Newman and her husband and their two adopted children, a boy and a girl.

“I have not been back to Peru since then,” Pezo-Vasquez said, adding that she does miss her family and three sisters in South America.

Although she’s a long way from her native land, Pezo-Vasquez has definitely made a home for herself in Baileyville and on the Woodland girls basketball squad.

Thomas Simmons, an assistant basketball coach and high school math teacher approached Pezo-Vasquez at the beginning of the year and asked her to join the team as a manager.

And what does she think about the Dragons winning the Eastern Maine finals?

“This is very exciting I have never been in this kind of stuff before,” she said.