Bangor’s ‘D’ stifles Hampden Rams limit Broncos to 8 first-half points

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BANGOR – Two games into the regular season, and the Bangor High boys basketball team has just one defense in its arsenal.

It’s working pretty well.

The Rams used their man-to-man defense to limit Hampden Academy to 4-of-34 shooting from the field en route to a 65-25 Class A victory over the Broncos at Red Barry Gymnasium on Tuesday night.

Bangor (2-0) held Hampden without a field goal in the first quarter, and allowed just one basket after intermission.

“We’ve been working hard on defense, and we’re getting better,” said Bangor coach Roger Reed. “That’s the one thing we spend most of our time on. We don’t have another defense in yet, and we’re not going to have another one in until we get this one right.”

Bangor’s defense has yielded an average of just 26.5 points in its victories over Skowhegan (62-28 last Friday) and Hampden, and has allowed only 13 total field goals.

“That’s just two games,” said Bangor senior forward Alex Gallant, “and we’ve got to do it every game. If we could do that every game, I’d say we should be pretty well off, but we’ve still got to go out and get it done every night.”

Junior guard Lee Suvlu paced Bangor offensively, making 7 of 11 shots from the field en route to a game-high 16 points, 12 in the first half as Bangor built a 28-8 lead.

Gallant added 12 points and seven rebounds, while junior center Ryan Weston contributed 10 points and six rebounds.

Bangor outrebounded Hampden 38-19.

“There are two things we emphasize, and that’s defense and rebounding,” said Reed. “You can’t have enough of that if you’re going to win championships or get to the level of play that we want these kids to get to.”

While Bangor returns the bulk of its roster from last year’s team that fell to Hampden in the Eastern A quarterfinals, the Broncos are a vastly different team from last year’s edition that won its second straight regional title, with graduation sending both 6-foot-10 center Jordan Cook and guard J Uhrin to the University of Maine Black Bears.

On this night, that inexperience showed at times.

“We have some guys who don’t understand how competitive it is and how hard it is to score night in and night out in our league,” said Broncos’ coach Russ Bartlett. It’s not easy. We’ve got to find ways to score, and we’ve got to find ways to stop people, too.”

Junior Brad Haase led 0-2 Hampden with seven points, while top returning player Dan McCue was held without a field goal and limited to four points while guarded for much of the early going by Bangor senior Troy Jellison.

“We know Dan is their top player, and he’s led their team for a while,” said Gallant. “But we trusted Troy to guard him and he did. He just put constant pressure on him and our help side was there, too.”

Bangor spotted Hampden a 2-0 lead on two McCue free throws, but Bangor ran off 12 straight points in taking a 12-2 lead at the end of the first quarter. Suvlu hit three jumpers and dished out a pair of assists in the period as Bangor benefited from good early ball movement.

Hampden hung within 16-8 midway through the second quarter before Bangor ended the first half with another 12-0 run to take a 28-8 lead at the break. Suvlu hit Bangor’s lone 3-pointer of the game to start that run, while Weston added a layup off a Jellison feed and another basket off an offensive rebound.

RAMS 65, BRONCOS 25

Hampden Acad. (0-2) Bangor (2-0)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Stephens 0 3 1 2 1 Jellison 2 6

Burke 0 2 1 2 1 McAllian 0 1

Turner 0 1 1 2 1 Suvlu 7 11 16

B. Hersey 1 1 2 2 4 Gallant 6 10 12

Evans 0 2 0 0 0 Weston 5 7 10

Haase 1 8 4 5 7 Zolper 0 1 1

A. Hersey 0 0 0 0 0 Edwards 2 3 5

Juco 1 2 1 4 3 Bernstein 2 2 4

Burditt 1 1 0 1 2 Crews 2 6 4

Farley 0 3 0 0 0 Chase 1 5 2

McCue 0 7 4 4 4 Webb 0 0 0

Moore 0 2 2 2 2 Martin 0 1 0

Workman 0 0 0 0 0 Francis 1 2 2

Brown 0 2 0 2 0 McDade 0 2 0

Larochelle 1 2 2

Clrd-Segn 0 0 0

Totals 4 34 16 26 25 Totals 29 62 11 65

Hampden Acad. 2 8 16 25

Bangor 12 28 52 65

3-pt. goals – Hampden (1-14): Haase 1-4, Stephens 0-1, Turner 0-1 Evans 0-1, Farley 0-1, Moore 0-1, Brown 0-1, McCue 0-4; Bangor (1-10): Suvlu 1-2, Edwards 0-1, Francis 0-1, Jellison 0-2, McAllian 0-2, Crews 0-2

JV: Bangor 62-29

Attendance: 400 (est.)