Some of Eastern Maine’s top schoolboy basketball players recently helped a team from the Pine Tree State earn a best-ever 11th-place finish at the junior boys/17-and-under AAU National Championships at Disney’s Wide World of Sports in Orlando, Fla.

Derek Libbey of Mattanawcook Academy in Lincoln, Lee Suvlu of Bangor, Brandon Tomah of Calais (who will be joining the Lee Academy postgraduate program in the fall) and Casey Reynolds of Nokomis of Newport were among 13 players on the Maine Basketball Report 17-and-under team that finished with a 7-2 record in the national tournament.

“It was sort of a surprise,” said Libbey, a 6-1 guard who was playing for the first time at an AAU national tournament. “I don’t want to say I went down there and didn’t expect to win. I wanted to win, but where I hadn’t played there before I wasn’t sure.”

The MBR team advanced from the starting field of 153 teams to the Sweet 16 before suffering its first loss, then advanced through the consolation bracket to the sixth-place game before being eliminated.

Before competing in the nationals, the same team went 4-1 in a Super Showcase tournament featuring a similar level of talent – which included a multitude of Division I college prospects.

“The kids had a great tournament,” said MBR coach Carl Parker of Bangor, who currently heads the postgraduate basketball program at Lee Academy and also has been involved with AAU basketball since it came to the state in 1991.

“What I really liked was how the kids really liked each other and worked with each other. All of them have egos that spur them to be good, but they put those personal egos aside and worked together as a group.”

The team was led by 6-1 point guard Sam Leclerc, a Division I prospect who will be a senior at Winthrop High School in the fall. Leclerc scored in double figures in 10 games on the trip while also running the offense.

“He was the glue,” said Parker.

Libbey, who is entering his senior year at Mattanawcook, averaged a team-high 16 points per game and matched Leclerc with a top single-game performance of 27 points in an 82-72 victory over a team from Baltimore, Md.

“It shows we can play with anyone,” said Libbey. “We played really good team ball, really good team defense. A lot of the other teams had one guy who wanted to take over the game, but we stayed with the team play and it worked out.”

Suvlu also was a frequent double-digit scoring contributor, while Tomah added a steady floor game and strong defense.

The MBR squad also featured the strong inside presence of 6-8 Tom Knight, who will be a junior at Dirigo of Dixfield this fall.

Other contributors to MBR’s successful run were Kris Noonan of Boothbay, Michael Foustoukos of Gorham, Evan Kenney of Gray-New Gloucester, William Colasante of St. Dominic of Lewiston, and Kyle Philbrook, Eric Prue and Ben Hartnett, all of Edward Little of Auburn.

The tournaments were frequented by college coaches from throughout the country at all levels, and the team’s performance likely enhanced the scholarship potential of several of the Maine players.

“The first couple of games there wasn’t a lot of interest from coaches,” said Libbey. “But as we went on and won some more games, more coaches and scouts started coming to our games.”