Lee opens postgrads basketball

LEE – The Lee Academy postgraduate basketball team will get a head start on its 2007-08 season with an exhibition game against a Canadian team on Saturday.

Lee, a second-year program coached by Carl Parker, will square off against the Limoilou Titans, a Quebec-based team that’s comparable to many prep school programs in the northeast United States.

Game time is 4 p.m. at the Lee Academy gym, and admission is free.

Lee will be led by two returning players from last year’s squad, 6-foot-2 Australian point guard Nate Tomlinson and Dorian Williams, a 6-foot-2 swingman from Teaneck, N.J. Tomlinson is ranked as the top college prospect in the Maine high school or prep school ranks by New England Recruiting News, while Williams is rated sixth.

Among the newcomers expected to have an impact on this year’s Lee squad are forwards Samer Jassar from Israel and Chris Baskerville of Hartford, Conn., guard Chris Bass of Baton Rouge, La., and guard Brandon Tomah, a two-time Bangor Daily News honoree who led Calais High School to a 44-game winning streak and the 2006 and 2007 Class C state championships.

The 6-foot-5 Baskerville, the fifth-rated recruit in the state by New England Recruiting News, has verbally committed to Central Connecticut.

Lee has two other exhibitions already scheduled, against Fisher College on Oct. 26 at Kennebunk and at the University of Maine at Fort Kent on Nov. 3.

The postgraduates then open their regular season schedule the following weekend.

Twelve players from last year’s team are currently at colleges or junior colleges, Parker said.

Four have moved on to the junior college ranks, five are at Division I programs including Southern Methodist, Toledo and Massachusetts, and three others are in small-college programs (American International College, Maine-Presque Isle and Fisher College).