To look at the roster of the Ashland girls basketball team, one would imagine the Hornets would be in good shape for next season with the graduation of just two seniors.

But Mindy Chasse and Whitney Flint aren’t just any seniors. The two represent the most prolific era of scoring at the Class D school since Liz Coffin was a player there.

Coffin, a 1984 Ashland graduate, scored about 1,800 points in her career.

Chasse reached the 1,000 mark earlier this season and Flint wrapped up her four years with what is believed to be 958 points after scoring seven in Saturday morning’s Eastern Maine Class D final, a 70-34 win for Woodland over the Hornets.

“When she looks back on it she might kick herself because the opportunity was there,” coach Bill Nemer said after the game. “But being the point guard, her responsibility was always dishing it in. This year she had some really big games. But even as good as those two played, they had more. We’ve never had two girls combine for [almost] 2,000.”

It was the second Eastern Maine Class D final appearance for the duo, who happen to be cousins. They were key freshmen on Ashland’s 2005 EM runner-up squad.

Nemer knew he had something special on his hands when the girls were sixth-graders on his middle school team.

“We went like 19-1 that year and won the Southern Aroostook tournament,” They were in sixth grade but had we not had them with the eighth-graders, we wouldn’t have done that. And that kind of started the whole thing.”

Flint and Chasse have had a good run so far in their senior year. They were both on the Ashland soccer team that won the Eastern Maine Class D title last fall. The cousins also play softball – Flint pitched while Chasse caught in the 2007 season.

Nemer will be gone next year, too. He’s decided to resign after a three-year stint, his second with the girls basketball team.

“It’s year round and I’m kind of tired,” he said. “I’ve got to push myself sometimes to give them everything that I think they deserve. I think I could keep going, but the wins aren’t as enjoyable and the losses hurt more. I think that’s a sign it’s time to get done.”

He also wants to watch his son Carl in his senior year of sports.

Nemer first skippered the Hornets from 1986-96, guiding them to a 16-2 regular season record in 1991 and a 52-50 win over Monmouth in the Class D state championship game.

Nemer represents a lot of wins for several Ashland teams. He has more than 150 wins in basketball, got to the 200-win mark in girls soccer before leaving that post in 2006 and had 99 in baseball.

“I’m proud of that,” he said.

Girls teams from small swath

Draw a line from Exit 227 on Interstate 95 to the town of Baileyville and you’ll hit three of the six girls basketball teams that played in Eastern Maine finals Saturday at the Bangor Auditorium.

Starting at the exit and heading east, Mattanawcook Academy of Lincoln played Waterville in the Class B regional championship, then Lee Academy won the EM Class C title, and Woodland in Baileyville took the Class D crown.

It wasn’t only that case in the girls games. The Lee Academy boys played Calais – just a few miles from Woodland – for the Class C title. The Woodland boys played Saturday morning.

Lee senior guard Aarika Ritchie said some of the girls on the three teams played against each other as youngsters – she can remember playing Mattanawcook sisters Brianna and Brooke Hanscom when they were very young – and many of them are friends.

After the Lee girls won the Class C regional, Ritchie and Woodland star Courtney Cochran had a friendly, animated chat in the balcony of the Auditorium and posed together for a photo.

jbloch@bangordailynews.net

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