Something had to give when Fort Fairfield and Ashland met in their Eastern Maine Class D quarterfinal Monday afternoon.

Neither had appeared at the Bangor Auditorium in at least a decade.

Fort Fairfield last made the trip south in 1998 and absorbed an 81-79 quarterfinal loss to Deer Isle-Stonington.

Ashland hadn’t run onto the Bangor Auditorium floor since 1996, when the eighth-ranked Hornets fell in the quarters to top-ranked Central Aroostook of Mars Hill 90-63.

And it had been nearly two decades since either had won in Bangor, Ashland with a 64-57 quarterfinal victory over Easton in 1989 and Fort Fairfield with its 89-83 overtime victory over John Bapst of Bangor in the 1988 Eastern Maine Class C championship game.

For the Tigers, at least, that Bangor victory drought didn’t come up in any pregame talk.

“We didn’t talk about winning a game, because I did not want them to get hung up on the pressure of coming to Bangor,” said Fort Fairfield coach Todd Alley. “I looked at them and said plain and simple, you’ve already accomplished something 10 years’ worth of teams couldn’t do, and that’s to get to the Bangor Auditorium floor.

“So this was just one more game. We had already reached the goal, so we said let’s go down, have some fun, play as a team and see what happens, and I believe we’ve got as good a shot as anyone on any given night.”

The talk paid off, as Fort Fairfield took control of the game in the second quarter and went on to a hard-fought 61-48 victory.

“It’s pretty crazy,” said Fort Fairfield forward Ryan Noyes, who had nine points and eight rebounds in the win. “It’s my senior year, we get to go down to Bangor the first time in forever, and then we win. It’s pretty cool.

“We knew we had a good team to start the season, we just had to battle our way to Bangor.”

Fort’s Booth beats the buzzer

Fort Fairfield’s Josh Booth was king of the buzzer-beating shooters Monday, and that kingdom was worth five points toward the fifth-ranked Tigers’ 61-48 victory over No. 4 Ashland.

The sophomore guard’s more dramatic shot came at the end of the first quarter, when he hit a 30-foot 3-pointer from just right of the middle of the court to cut a 17-12 Ashland lead to 17-15.

“They told me to shoot it and I shot it,” said Booth of the play, which was set up by a steal in Ashland’s frontcourt by teammate Ryan Noyes. “It was a good look, I guess.”

Booth, who scored a team-high 15 points during the victory, added another last-second shot just before halftime. That shot was a jumper from just left of the free-throw line with two seconds left that capped off an 8-0 Fort Fairfield run and gave the Tigers a 33-26 halftime lead.

They never trailed again.

Short lineups scale heights

Central Aroostook and Fort Fairfield will present somewhat similar images when they square off in Thursday afternoon’s regional semifinal at the Bangor Auditorium.

Neither team has much size.

Fort Fairfield has no one taller than 6 feet in its primary rotation, but that didn’t faze the Tigers as they fought off a much taller Ashland team, which used three players between 6-2 and 6-5 in its frontcourt.

“Getting through this game being undersized like we were gives us big confidence,” said Fort Fairfield coach Todd Alley. “It doesn’t matter if we play a team that’s bigger or one that’s smaller like us, I still think we can get things done together.”

Undefeated Central Aroostook is similarly smallish up front, with 6-1 Blake and Logan McCarthy the tallest players in the Panthers’ lineup.

“We have to use our quickness, we don’t have a lot of size,” said Central Aroostook coach Tim Brewer. “But the kids usually play hard for 32 minutes, and we’re usually a pretty good defensive team. That’s what led us all year, and I think the kids will be ready for the next round.”

eclark@bangordailynews.net

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