BANGOR – The Bangor High boys basketball team rebounded from its closest call of the season to date with perhaps its best overall performance of the winter Thursday night, a 58-26 romp over Messalonskee of Oakland at Red Barry Gymnasium.

This game pitted the two participants in the 2007 Eastern Maine Class A championship game, but the rematch was no contest as the defending state champion Rams broke the game open by outscoring Messalonskee 23-5 over the final 10 minutes of the first half to take a 31-13 lead at intermission.

“We got beat by a better team,” said Messalonskee coach Tom Hill. “They beat us in every aspect of the game. They outcoached us, they outplayed us, and it showed on the scoreboard.

“That’s the best basketball team in Eastern Maine, and we’re not there.”

Bangor, 7-0 this season and winner of its last 17 games overall, entered the contest ranked No. 1 in the latest Eastern A Heal point ratings, while 5-2 Messalonskee was ranked third.

Messalonskee got off to a competitive start, tying the game for the final time at 8-8 when Orlando Holmes scored on a drive with 2:11 left in the first quarter.

But Lee Suvlu took a feed from Ian Edwards and made a 3-pointer, igniting an 8-0 run that gave Bangor the lead for good. Suvlu fed Sam Martin for a layup that gave the Rams a 13-8 cushion at the end of the quarter before Jon McAllian opened the second period with a 3-pointer that extended the margin to 16-8.

That second quarter bordered on a clinic by the Rams, who were playing for the first time since scratching out a 56-53 victory at Edward Little of Auburn in their last game of 2007.

Bangor made its first four shots of the period and shot 8 of 15 from the field overall while forcing seven Messalonskee turnovers and outscoring the Eagles 18-5.

“I’ve been telling the kids that we needed to become a lot more tenacious on the defensive end, and I was pleased with how the kids came out tonight,” said Bangor coach Roger Reed. “They really played hard early and I think that set the tone for the entire game.

“We played well off that tenacity, and we rebounded well, too.”

Senior center Ryan Weston paced Bangor’s balanced offense with 12 points, six in the first quarter as the Rams sought to work the ball inside at the outset of the contest.

“That was our whole plan, to get it inside and then we’d work it inside-out,” said Reed. “Messalonskee kept shifting defenses on us and that kept us off-balance a little bit, but we knew they were going to do that.”

Suvlu came off the bench to finish with 10 points, including eight in the first half, while Billy Zolper scored eight points.

McAllian contributed five first-half assists as Bangor had 10 assists on its 15 baskets over the first two quarters, while Edwards grabbed seven rebounds to lead the Rams’ 37-19 domination of the backboards.

Messalonskee, meanwhile, shot just 26 percent (10 of 39) from the field.

“They’re an awful good basketball team, an awful deep basketball team,” said Hill of Bangor. “They started a couple of kids tonight I wasn’t expecting to see, but they’ve just got a lot of weapons and we physically can’t match up with them. Then we didn’t have a very good night shooting the basketball, and you throw all those things together and it’s a long night.”

Holmes, a senior forward, led Messalonskee with 11 points and seven rebounds, but he shot just 4 of 18 from the field, including 1 of 11 from beyond the 3-point arc. Ray Bernier added 10 points for the Eagles.

RAMS 58, EAGLES 26

Messalonskee (5-2) Bangor (7-0)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Ouellette 0 0 0 0 0 R.Larchlle 0 0

Stevens 0 0 0 0 0 C.Larchlle 1 2

Pelletier 0 3 0 2 0 McAllian 1 3

Bernier 4 11 1 2 10 Zolper 4 7 8

Berkner 0 0 0 0 0 Edwards 2 4 4

Gilbert 0 0 0 0 0 Suvlu 4 10 10

Bolduc 1 1 0 2 2 Bernstein 0 0

Hash 0 0 0 0 0 Clrd-Sgin 1 3 2

Brann 0 2 1 2 1 Henigan 1 3 4

Dubois 1 4 0 0 2 Hall 1 1 2

Holmes 4 18 2 4 11 McDade 2 3 4

Martin 2 4 0 4

Weston 6 10 0 12

Frazier 1 1 0 3

Cox 0 2 0 0

Totals 10 39 4 12 26 Totals 26 59 58

Messalonskee 8 13 20 26

Bangor 13 31 41 58

3-pt. goals – Messalonskee (2-17): Holmes 1-11, Bernier 1-3, Pelletier 0-1, Dubois 0-2; Bangor (4-9): Suvlu 2-4, McAllian 1-2, Frazier 1-1, Zolper 0-1, Bernstein 0-1

JV: Bangor 76-50

Attendance: 500 (est.)