BANGOR – In the end, the Dexter Tigers just had too much for the Fort Kent Warriors… Too much Mallory Ames.

Dexter’s 6-foot-6 walking matchup problem was just that for the smaller Warriors as she had a double-double to lead No. 2 Dexter to a 55-46 Eastern Maine Class C semifinal victory at the Bangor Auditorium Friday afternoon.

The senior center had 34 points, 17 rebounds, and three blocked shots – all game-highs – to lead the 20-1 Tigers into the regional title game for a fifth straight year.

The Tigers will take on No. 8 Calais in a 7:05 p.m. game today. The sixth-seeded Warriors finished their season 14-7.

The Warriors defended Ames well, considering their size shortfall, by pushing her farther back than usual on the blocks, but it took awhile. Ames scored nine of Dexter’s first 11 points almost unchallenged.

“Our theory on Ames is you have to pester her as much as possible and possibly giving her body contact to keep her as far from the rim as you can,” said Fort Kent coach Travis Delisle. “When you have nobody over 5-10 against a 6-6 player, once she gets the ball, there’s very little you can do.”

The Warriors managed to fashion a 10-0 scoring run with Ames in to take a 16-11 lead in the first quarter and took advantage of her absence the last four minutes of the first half, but Delisle was hoping for something more than a 6-2 run and a 25-24 halftime lead.

“The thing is, I think we were too relaxed in the third quarter and didn’t have that sense of urgency or intensity and we struggled,” Delisle explained.

The Tigers roared out of halftime by scoring 14 of the first 18 points (nine by Ames) to retake a lead they would not relinquish.

“I really believe our defense won this for us today, and that’s why we usually rely on it in difficult situations,” said Dexter coach Jody Grant.

The Warriors’ 3-point shooting, a strength, was not this time around as they shot 20.8 percent (5-for-24) from beyond the arc and 27.3 percent overall.

“We knew they were going to take the 3s, but we wanted to keep them between six and eight,” Grant said. “We figured we had a good chance to beat them. Five is even better.”

Dexter’s lead got as high as 12 points in the fourth quarter (48-36 with 3 minutes left), but the Warriors had one run left in them, outscoring the Tigers 10-3 to cut it to 51-46 with 1:03 left.

“There was a point where we couldn’t score because their defense was so good, but we were able to get through it,” said Ames. “We were very lucky, especially at the end when they missed four or five shots in a row.”

Three of those were 3-pointers, but the Tigers finally got the ball back and hit four of six foul shots down the stretch to put the game on ice.

Katie Poirier had 12 boards to pace an effort giving Dexter a 42-14 rebounding advantage.

Marissa Albert led the Warriors with 21 points and Emily Pelletier chipped in with 10.

TIGERS 55, WARRIORS 46

Fort Kent (14-7) Dexter (20-1)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Boucher 3 13 1 3 7 Ames 13 24 10 34

E.Pelletier 3 14 1 2 10 Chmbers 0 5 4

Rossignol 0 1 1 2 1 Gove 0 4 1

Albert 7 21 5 6 21 Burton 4 9 8

Hafford 0 2 2 2 2 Chapman 0 2 2

Bouchard 0 0 0 0 0 Poirier 2 6 6

Charette 2 4 1 2 5

Morneault 0 0 0 0 0

Totals 15 55 11 17 46 Totals 19 50 17 24 55

Fort Kent 16 25 31 46

Dexter 14 24 40 55

3-pt. goals – Fort Kent (5-24): E. Pelletier 3-8, Albert 2-11, Boucher 0-4, Hafford 0-1; Dexter (0-0)