BANGOR – Most observers agree senior Greg Whitaker is the most valuable person in the Presque Isle High School boys basketball program.

Veteran coach Tim Prescott begs to differ.

His choice? How about trainer Susan Lougee.

Whitaker, the Wildcats’ powerful 6-foot-5 forward, is dealing with a stress fracture in his right shin that kept him out of action for more than two weeks leading up to last Friday’s quarterfinal game against Caribou.

He might not even be playing in the tournament were it not for Lougee.

“He got off his crutches the day before the quarters,” Prescott said.

Lougee, and the staff at County Physical Therapy, worked hard to help get Whitaker ready for the tournament.

“Susan Lougee, our athletic trainer, has fluttered over him like a guardian angel now for X amount of days,” Prescott said. “She has really put the time in with him. She’s amazing.”

After going through extensive treatment, including some tense moments in the pool for Whitaker (he isn’t an accomplished swimmer) the Wildcats’ mainstay has refused to be held down.

Nobody knows exactly when Whitaker suffered the injury, because he played through significant initial discomfort.

“We were told at one point that, in all reality, that [injury] could be it [the end of Whitaker’s season],” Prescott said.

Whitaker appeared to be in good form Wednesday, contributing a team-high 18 points and seven rebounds in PI’s 69-52 win over Ellsworth.

“Greg is a throwback,” Prescott said. “Believe it or not, there are still kids out there who will not whine about blisters and sore feet and sore knees. Greg’s a tough-as-nails kind of guy.”

Doctor helps keep Ames on court

The rumors swirled all Tuesday and even Wednesday morning.

Would 6-foot-6 Dexter center Mallory Ames be healthy enough to play in an Eastern Maine Class C quarterfinal against George Stevens?

Even Dexter coach Jody Grant was coy about the status of his standout junior before the game.

Not only did Ames play, but she scored 25 points, hitting 12 of 15 shots, in the No. 1 Tigers’ 57-40 victory over the No. 8 Eagles of Blue Hill.

Ames said she rolled her right ankle in practice late last week and it was swollen. Two trips to Brewer doctor Stephen Typaldos later, Ames was pronounced OK to play.

“I don’t know what he did to it,” she said. “He cracked it and pushed at it and it really hurt. It’s still really swollen.”

She did have a scary moment early in the fourth quarter when she went down on the floor for a loose ball and someone either stepped or rolled on to her ankle.

But the pain couldn’t have been too bad – Ames scored six more points in the rest of the game.

Berry faces Calais again

The last time Samantha Berry was involved in a basketball game at the Bangor Auditorium, she was sitting on the bench for the then-Class B Houlton girls basketball team, nursing a knee that had undergone surgery for a torn ligament.

Six years later, Berry returned to the court, this time as an assistant coach for the Class C Shiretowners.

The team on the opposing bench Wednesday morning was Calais – the team against whom Berry suffered her injury on Dec. 13, 2000, which was three games into her senior year.

The Shiretowners went on to earn a 41-40 win over the Blue Devils.

“To be honest I was completely jealous of them,” Berry said with a smile. “It’s great being a coach but I just wanted to be out there with them.”

Berry had a fine career at the University of Maine-Presque Isle.

She spent a few minutes with Calais coach Bob McShane before Wednesday’s game. Berry said McShane remembered her from that 2000 game.

“He just came over to wish us good luck,” she said.

Calais and Houlton had another injury connection in Wednesday’s game. Calais guard Ashley Allen, who injured her neck last winter in a tubing accident a few hours after a Feb. 11 regular-season game against the Shiretowners, scored two points off the bench Wednesday.

She missed the entire tournament last year.