Hermon finds rhythm in topping previously unbeaten Bapst

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It hasn’t been a good couple of days for the some of the undefeated girls basketball teams in Eastern Maine.

Central Aroostook of Mars Hill beat Washburn, which had a 7-0 record before the Panthers’ 47-35 win on Thursday.

George Stevens Academy of Blue Hill, which is itself an undefeated squad, defeated Washington Academy 64-60 Friday. The Raiders of East Machias were 5-0 going into that game.

On Saturday, the Hermon girls knocked off 2007 Eastern Maine Class B runner-up John Bapst of Bangor 56-43, as the Crusaders were going for their ninth win.

Two other former unbeatens lost Jan. 2. Gardiner, which was 5-0, fell to Winslow 32-24 and Cony of Augusta avenged an early season loss to Morse of Bath with a 51-28 win. The Shipbuilders were 6-0 before the loss to the Rams.

That leaves only Waterville and Mattanawcook Academy of Lincoln in Class B, Lee and GSA in Class C, and Greater Houlton Christian Academy in Class D as undefeated Eastern Maine squads.

Hermon coach Margie Deabay said Monday she felt the Hawks weren’t playing their best as they headed into Saturday afternoon’s game against the Crusaders.

“We felt like we really got outplayed against Mattanawcook,” Deabay said of 8-1 Hermon’s only loss, a 54-45 defeat on Dec. 19. “Since then we felt like we hadn’t played well but we’ve still been able to win.”

And the first shot of the game was a 3-pointer by Bapst guard Eve Jordan – who made the shot even though the girls started the game with a boys’ basketball.

The Hawks played a 2-1-2 zone in an attempt to shut down Bapst standout forward Hillary Laferriere, who just two days earlier scored 20 points against Central of Corinth. Laferriere finished with eight points against Hermon.

Meanwhile, Deabay said the Hawks fought through a variety of Crusader defensive schemes. Hermon had a 21-20 lead at halftime on a Hillary Keith runner at the second-quarter buzzer and a five-point edge going into the fourth quarter. Senior forward Ashley Kelley led the Hawks with 27 points.

“We really played controlled, especially in the last quarter,” Deabay said. “Traditionally that’s when we’ve had things fall apart. We kept it together and kept our composure. They know they can do it now.”

The Hawks passed another tough test Monday night against Old Town, beating the Coyotes 51-47. Hermon won the teams’ first meeting 62-57 on Dec. 14.

“We just wanted to enjoy it for a few days,” Deabay said of the win over Bapst, whom Hermon will host in a rematch Feb. 4.

Albert’s return bolster Warriors

The Fort Kent girls basketball team has put up some eye-popping numbers lately, including two wins against Van Buren and Penobscot Valley of Howland in which the 5-2 Warriors scored a combined 198 points.

But for the importance of Fort Kent’s season, the recent scoring output by Marissa Albert is a key development.

Albert, a senior guard who suffered an anterior cruciate ligament tear in her left knee in November, said last month she had decided to put off surgery and try to come back to basketball when she had regained the strength in her knee.

She has returned to practice even though she’s still in physical therapy, and got her first action of the season Thursday in a 109-37 win against Van Buren. Albert scored 15 points, including three 3-pointers, in the game and did the very same thing Saturday in an 89-54 win over PVHS.

Albert isn’t starting and is being limited to about 13 minutes per game, but Warriors coach Travis Delisle expects her to be back in the starting lineup in a few games. She’s about 100 points away from the 1,000th of her career.

Delisle said he’s been trying to get Albert to hold back a bit, but it’s tough to tell the competitive player not to go her hardest.

“We’ve been trying to get her to create off the dribble, but her game is attacking the rim,” he said. “It’s kind of hard to get her to hold back on that. Sitting on the bench and watching, sometimes I keep my fingers crossed and pray that nothing happens.”

Albert is a good rebounder, too, but Delisle doesn’t want her to mix it up too much under the hoop. He envisions Albert in a role similar to that of a football safety who can pick off passes in the backcourt and jumpstart the offense by getting the ball to junior guard Emily Pelletier and sophomore guard Taylor Boucher, who have been nearly unstoppable this year.

Pelletier has averaged about 22 points per game and had a combined 57 points, including 13 3-pointers, in Fort Kent’s two most recent wins. Boucher has been averaging around 20 ppg with a combined 40 points in those two games.

Once Albert is ready to go at full speed, the Warriors will likely be even tougher.

“It’s going to be like a 3-headed monster,” Delisle said. “You have to pick your poison. Who are you going to stop?”

Both Albert and Pelletier were Eastern Maine Class C all-tournament picks last winter.

Hornets have busy Saturday

The Lubec boys and girls basketball teams played rare doubleheaders Saturday, but it was a situation the Hornets couldn’t escape – not with an 18-game schedule and the recent spate of snowy weather.

Both squads traveled to Auburn to play games against Elan of Poland. The games were originally scheduled for Friday, Dec. 28 and Saturday, Dec. 29, with the boys and girls each playing one game a day. The games were to be held in a middle school gym in Raymond.

But a snowstorm that Friday forced a postponement, and the only day both schools could come up with was Saturday, Jan. 5. That meant both teams had to play two games on the same day.

“It’s not a very good thing for them,” said girls coach Richard Huntley, whose Hornets won the first game 74-35 and the second 68-51. “But with an 18-game schedule and a short season, you have to be able to get in all your games and work with the other team’s schedule.”

Elan won the boys games 51-44 and 51-32.

The Hornets left Lubec at about 5:30 a.m. They arrived at the Central Maine Community College in Auburn, which was the closest available facility, Huntley said, and then played four games in a row, starting with the girls and alternating with the boys.

The bus pulled in to Lubec after midnight with a stop in Bangor, where the school treated the group to dinner at Bugaboo Creek, a restaurant near the Bangor Mall.

Huntley said his girls weren’t at their best despite a lot of scoring. Shelby Searles scored a combined 47 points and Krista Wright had 32 in the two games.

“They were sluggish right from the get-go,” Huntley said. “It was an endurance test, most definitely. … For a seven-man team, when everything’s going well, they’re phenomenal.”

So how did the girls cool off between games?

“We went to Burger King,” Huntley said. “Fed ’em dinner.”

Elan is scheduled to travel to Lubec in 2008-09.

Central uniforms

When the Central of Corinth girls basketball team found out it was getting new uniforms this year as the squad moved from Class C to Class B, the Red Devils pored through magazines to find the right look.

What they chose was something a bit unusual – red-and-white-striped knee-high socks and racerback jerseys, an unusual style in which the sleeves of the jersey are narrower across the shoulders and come together closer in the back.

“We were just looking at different styles and we thought the racerbacks were pretty cool,” said Sami Morin, a Central senior guard. “[The socks] were just something the team wanted to do to make us stand out. We’re going to Class B, so we want to be different and look cool.”

Although the jerseys are mostly about aesthetics, the racerback exposes more of the shoulder, which may make for a freer feeling when shooting. Girls basketball players who wear the more standard tank tops sometimes bunch up the sleeves across the shoulder to achieve this effect.

“It helps,” Morin said. “We aren’t playing with our shoulders all the time.”

jbloch@bangordailynews.net

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