For all the great girls basketball players and teams that have come out of Cony High School, only now do the Rams of Augusta have a Gatorade Maine Girls Basketball Player of the Year.

Cony senior forward Rachael Mack has earned the honor, Gatorade and RISE Magazine announced Wednesday.

Mack, who is a Miss Maine Basketball finalist and will play for Colby College in Waterville next year, led Cony to an 18-3 record and an appearance in the Eastern Maine Class A championship game, where the Rams fell to Oxford Hills of South Paris 52-49.

She was a junior on last year’s Class A state championship squad and played a vital role as a freshman substitute on the Rams’ 2005 Class A title team.

This year the 6-foot-2 Mack averaged 18.2 points, 10.1 rebounds and 3 assists per game. She also shot 74 percent from the free-throw line and was named a Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference South division first-team player.

“She has been very dedicated to the sport,” Brunswick girls coach Rita Maines said in a statement. “She’s a silent assassin on the court and a fierce competitor. She’s one of those players who doesn’t seem to be doing much, but then you look up and see that she’s got a double-double. She’s been a great role model for the kids at Cony and for the rest of the kids in the state.”

Last month Mack was named to the Eastern Maine Class A all-tourney team. She was an All-Maine second-team player in 2007 and honorable mention the year before.

Mack volunteers for the United Way of Kennebec Valley and for numerous organizations in association with the Cony High Key Club. She also volunteers at the Bread of Life Soup Kitchen in Augusta. She has an A average in the classroom.

The Gatorade award recognizes outstanding athletic excellence as well as high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character off the court.

McDormand doubly honored

Most coaches would be honored to win a Coach of the Year award for their conference and feel satisfied with that.

Mattanawcook Academy of Lincoln’s Brian McDormand picked up his second Coach of the Year award this season – and it was his second in two different states.

McDormand was named the Big East Conference Class B Coach of the Year last week, five years after the former coach at Lynnfield High in Lynnfield, Mass., named the Cape Ann League Coach of the Year.

McDormand had a 70-19 record at Lynnfield, which made it to the state championship of Division 3 at the FleetCenter in Boston one year after he earned his Cape Ann coaching award. Lynnfield has enrollment of 519 students according to the Maine Interscholastic Athletic Association.

McDormand guided Mattanawcook to a 19-3 record and Eastern Maine Class B runner-up honors this year.

jbloch@bangordailynews.net

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