BUCKSPORT – After retiring to the locker room at halftime of Monday night’s Class B clash down eight points against the top-ranked team in the Northeast, Caribou coach Chris Casavant issued his team a challenge.

The Vikings needed their leaders to lead and their role players to step up against Bucksport.

Whatever he said should have been recorded to use during future halftimes because the Vikings not only responded, they had a career half.

After shooting a paltry 26.9 percent from the field in the first half, the Vikings shot a scalding 74 percent (17-for-23) from the field and posted a dramatic 59-56 upset of the Golden Bucks.

“Number one, we got points from our non-scorers, so we’re finally getting some balance, and it takes a lot of pressure off our scorers, Tyler [Giles] and Joel [Griffeth],” said Casavant, whose Vikings improved to 6-6 and grabbed a lot of valuable Heal points with the win.

The win avenged a come-from-behind win at Caribou by the now 11-2 Bucks, who overcame a huge halftime deficit in the earlier contest.

“We were up 20-something on them at halftime last time and lost by two or three, so we knew we should have beaten them,” said Giles, who answered his coach’s challenge big time by scoring 13 of his game-high 19 points in the second half.

Ironically, Giles was held without any rebounds after grabbing seven in the first half.

“They didn’t have a lot of offensive rebounds, but they didn’t have to in the second half because most of those shots were going in,” said Bucks coach Dave Gonyar.

Caribou took its first lead of the game – other than a 2-0 edge 1:07 into the game – on Griffeth’s 3-pointer from a good 21 feet away on the right wing. The shot gave the Vikes a 40-38 lead at the close of the third quarter. The shot was the first of five lead changes in the final eight minutes.

Bucksport answered with a 6-0 run, but another Griffeth 3-pointer, this time from the left wing, made it a one-point game with 4:54 to play.

The Bucks took a 52-48 lead on Kyle Mercer’s “3” from the left wing with 3:28 left, but Caribou roared back on the back of Giles, who accounted for six points in an 8-0 Vikings run that gave them the lead for good. Giles scored 11 of Caribou’s last 13 points.

“Coach said we’re not going to be good at the beginning of the year, but we’re going to be good at the end,” said Giles.

Griffeth wound up with 14 points, seven boards, and four assists, but he and his fellow senior forward weren’t the only ones to turn in key efforts as junior center Matt Nason scored nine points in the second half en route to a 13-point, 12-rebound night.

Caribou’s frontcourt led the Vikes to a 34-26 rebounding edge as they practically owned the blocks in the second half.

One time when they didn’t was in the final 80 seconds as Bucks reserve forward Jordan Wingate hit back-to-back shots from the paint to tie the game with 36 seconds left, but Giles converted a three-point play with 13 seconds left to put the Vikes back up.

With six seconds left, a game-tying 3-pointer from the right corner by Mercer bounced to Nason before the ball went out of bounds off a Bucks player during a scramble. Caribou inbounded to Griffeth and he dribbled out the remaining time.

Senior guard Jason Harvey led the Bucks with 14 points and eight assists while backcourt mate Corey Guilford reached the 1,000-point mark for his high school career with an 11-point effort.

VIKINGS 59, GOLDEN BUCKS 56

Caribou (6-6) Bucksport (11-2)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

St. Peter 1 3 0 0 3 McHale 1 1 2

LeVasseur 0 0 0 0 0 Sheehan 0 0 0

Nadeau 0 3 2 2 2 Mercer 3 9 8

Nason 6 8 1 2 13 Allard 1 2 3

Chasse 1 1 1 3 3 Guilford 4 11 0 0 11

Griffeth 6 13 0 0 14 Harvey 7 16 14

Cyr 1 3 0 0 3 Ogden 1 5 0 2

Beaulieu 0 0 2 2 2 Atherton-Dow 1 3

Giles 9 18 1 3 19 Wingate 4 6 9

Nason 2 2 0 4

Totals 24 49 7 12 59 Totals 24 53 56

Caribou 6 18 40 59

Bucksport 13 26 38 56

3-pt. goals ? Caribou (4-6): Griffeth 2-3, St. Peter 1-1, Cyr 1-1, Nadeau 0-1; Bucksport (6-20): Guilford 3-8, Mercer 2-5, Allard 1-1, Harvey 0-6

Attendance: 500 (est.)