BANGOR – Suffocating pressure defense was a common theme for the George Stevens Academy of Blue Hill and Houlton girls basketball teams as they earned Eastern Maine Class C semifinal berths Wednesday.

Rachel Foster and Emily Bartlett each scored 11 second-half points as the top-ranked Shiretowners pulled away for a 64-45 victory over Fort Kent in the second game of the morning session at the Bangor Auditorium.

The No. 5 GSA Eagles earned a date with the Shires by virtue of a convincing 68-41 triumph over fourth seed Stearns of Millinocket in the opening game.

The two teams will meet Friday evening at 8:35.

The second game featured a rematch of last year’s Eastern Maine quarterfinal in which the Warriors pulled off the upset in overtime.

For a while it looked the Warriors had a chance to repeat history as an effective double- and triple-team on the 6-foot-1 Foster, coupled with the outside shooting of Emily Pelletier, led to a 20-19 halftime edge.

The Shires went into a 1-2-2 defense after the break to put more pressure on Fort Kent’s perimeter attack while cranking up their transition game.

“We felt if we could just run them for three quarters and their legs would go then maybe they might start missing them,” said Houlton coach Shawn Graham.

After Pelletier hit 3-of-7 from 3-point range in the first half, she was held to just 2-of-8 from beyond the arc after the break.

Houlton’s offense had more success, as Emily Bartlett scored nine third-quarter points to give the Shires an eight-point edge heading into the fourth.

After Pelletier’s lone second-half 3’s brought the Warriors within 42-40 with 6:15 to play, Houlton outscored Fort Kent 22-5 the rest of the way.

Once the Shires extended their defense and collapsed on the Warriors’ shooters, they found themselves not getting clean looks and rushing their shots.

“Our shot selection wasn’t as good as we had liked it to have been today,” said Fort Kent coach Travis Delisle. “We had rather been able to attack the rim.”

Foster’s bucket with 2:30 to play capped a 16-0 run that gave the Shires their largest lead at 61-40 with 2:40 remaining.

Vanessa Sanderson led Houlton with 15 points while Lainey Hearring netted 11.

Pelletier finished with 15 points for the Warriors and Marissa Albert 12.

In the first game, junior guard Maddie Park was a force on both ends of the floor for GSA (18-1), leading all scorers with 18 points while sparking the Eagles’ aggressive defense with six steals.

GSA led only 16-12 after the first period and 35-26 at intermission, but their full-court pressure wore down the Minutemen while forcing 27 turnovers on the game and holding 15-4 Stearns to two field goals in the third quarter as the Eagles extended their lead to 53-33.

“We’ve always been a pressure team. Once we found out they got rattled by it we kept with it,” said Park, who scored seven third-quarter points.

Because the Eagles hadn’t played a game in two weeks, they came out a tad rusty early before settling into a flow.

“Our jitters kind of went away and we realized, OK its time to play basketball, and we really stepped it up,” Park said.

The Eagles came out firing in the second half, and India Frazier’s baseline pull-up at the 1:52 mark capped a 13-2 run which gave GSA a comfortable margin.

The advantage grew to as big as 27 in the fourth.

“We knew if we won the third quarter we were going to win the game,” coach Donald Allen said. “That was our plan, come out strong and win the third quarter.”

Once that happened, the Minutemen found themselves in a hole that was virtually impossible to dig out of.

“When you get behind by 15 its hard to play catch-up,” said Stearns coach Mike Portwine.

Frazier finished with 13 points and Alida Peake chipped in 10 for GSA while sophomore Becca Leavitt was the only Stearns player in double digits with 11.

bdnsports@bangordailynews.net

EAGLES 68, MINUTEMEN 41

George Stevens (18-1) Stearns (15-4)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Clapp 0 0 0 0 0 Osborne 0 0 0

Davis 3 5 0 1 6 Davis 1 3 4

Mattson 0 0 0 2 0 Levesque 0 0

Park 7 17 3 4 18 Marter 0 3 4 4

E. Peake 3 7 2 2 8 Mills 2 6 7

A. Peake 4 7 1 2 10 Leavitt 3 8 11

Van dr Eb 3 7 0 0 6 LeGssy 0 0 0

Brown 0 1 0 0 0 Beaulieu 2 4

Frazier 5 7 3 4 13 Lynch 2 2 4

Eaton 0 0 0 0 0 Lyons 1 4 7

Theohrdis 1 3 5 5 7 Sheridan 0 0

Pratt 0 0 0 0 0 Deabay 0 0 0

Totals 26 54 14 20 68 Totals 11 32 16 25 41

George Stevens 16 35 53 68

Stearns 14 26 33 41

3-pt. goals – George Stevens (2-8): A. Peake 1-2, Park 1-4, Theoharidis 0-1, Davis 0-1; Stearns (1-4): Leavitt 1-2, Davis 0-1, Beaulieu 0-1

SHIRETOWNERS 64, WARRIORS 45

Fort Kent (15-5) Houlton (18-1)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Boucher 3 12 0 0 7 Putnam 0 1 1

E. Pelletier 5 15 0 0 15 Bartlett 4 14 3 3 13

Rossignol 2 3 0 0 4 Dow 4 18 8

J. Pelletier 0 1 0 0 0 Foster 6 12 13

Witmer 0 6 0 0 0 Sandrson 5 15

Albert 5 18 1 1 12 Lackey 0 0 0

Walker 0 0 0 0 0 Bailey 0 0 0

Thibodeau 0 2 0 0 0 Herring 5 7 11

Daigle 1 1 0 1 2 McPrtland 1 3

Cyr 0 2 0 0 0 Caron 0 0 0 0

Dubay 0 0 0 0 0 Lizotte 0 1 0

Bouchard 2 3 1 2 5

Totals 18 63 2 4 45 Totals 25 67 11 16 64

Fort Kent 9 20 32 45

Houlton 8 19 40 64

3-pt. goals – Fort Kent (7-29): Pelletier 5-16, Albert 1-7, Boucher 1-4, Thibodeau 0-2; Houlton (2-8): Bartlett 1-3, Sanderson 1-2, Putnam 0-1, Dow 0-1, McPartland 0-1