Another Bangor state title quest starts tonight

The Bangor High School hockey team knows it has been a special year athletically for the school and wants to do its part beginning tonight at 6:30 when it entertains Messalonskee High School of Oakland in an Eastern Maine Class A quarterfinal at Sawyer Arena.

Bangor High has already captured state championships in boys soccer, swimming, and indoor track as well as in girls swimming. The boys basketball team is playing Portland in the state Class A title game on Saturday.

“We had a big assembly [at school] today and they put a little pressure on us. We have two spots to fill on the Wall of Fame and they’re like ‘Basketball and hockey, it’s your job to fill that,'” said senior center Matt Boehmer.

“I kind of liked it. It gave me a little boost of confidence,” added Boehmer.

The Rams, 12-7-1 and the third seed, have won four straight, including their last three home games. Messalonskee, coached by former University of Maine standout Mike Latendresse, is 11-9.

“The thing that has helped us lately is instead of having just one line scoring, our top two lines have been scoring,” said senior defenseman Joel Whitney. “And we’ve been coming together as a team.”

Boehmer is the team’s leading scorer with 15 goals and 12 assists for 27 points. He is on a line with Dylan George (6 goals, 7 assists) and Christian Dionne (12 & 14). The second line has Johnny Warren (10 & 7) between Jon Hyatt (7 & 2) and speedster David Pardilla.

Jake Silver (2 & 12) and Whitney (2 & 9) have anchored the defense corps in front of goalie Andrew Riley.

Bangor beat Messalonskee 4-1 on Jan. 20, but the Eagles were without leading scorer Matt DelGiudice (shoulder injury). DelGiudice is back and will be a handful, according to Bangor coach Ted Taylor.

“We’re going to have to take care their top line. DelGiudice is a force,” said Taylor.

Boehmer pointed out that the Rams have “usually done a good job shutting down other teams’ top lines.”

The Eagles also feature forwards Brett Glasheen and Justin Lawler along with defenseman Nathan Veilleux and goalie Zach Parent.

Parent had 33 saves in the loss to Bangor.