For much of the tournament, insiders, outsiders, observers and wild-guessers have come up with the idea that this tourney was longtime Jonesport-Beals coach Ordie Alley’s last on the Royals’ bench.

Alley, who has undergone surgery for prostate cancer and who is battling a neuromuscular autoimmune disease called myasthenia gravis, says that talk isn’t necessarily true.

He does have plans for next year, after all. Concrete ones.

“I’m gonna stay married,” he said with a chuckle after the Royals lost to Bangor Christian in the Eastern Maine Class D finals.

But seriously, Alley said whether he coaches or not next year will depend on something he has learned not to take for granted: his health.

“I love being around the kids, and they want me to be there,” he said. “They just told me, ‘We hope you’re coaching next year for us.’

“So I’ll wait and see how I feel.”

Alley didn’t feel particularly well Saturday, as he suffered some of the effects of his myasthenia gravis: labored breathing and vision problems.

“I had a little spell at the motel this morning. My breathing was down some. With the Lord’s help, I’ll get through it.”

Alley said he felt weak during the game as well, and didn’t feel strong enough to stand up and hand out the individual awards to his players after the game. He sat on the bench, while his son, assistant coach Troy Alley, handled the awards.

“I knew I couldn’t stand up there, so I just decided not to,” he said. “I’d rather sit down than fall down.”

But if his health cooperates, Alley said he wouldn’t count himself out of another trip to Bangor next season.

“If my health improves like it has from last year to this year, I’ll probably be able to stand up,” he joked.

Girls teams get unique repeat

If the matchups for the Classes B, C and D schoolgirl state finals seem familiar, there’s a good reason – they are the same matchups as last year.

It’s the first time that all six teams have repeated as regional champions.

Eastern Maine Class B champion Mount Desert Island will face Gray-New Gloucester. EM Class C Calais winner will play Dirigo of Dixfield. Woodland, the EM Class D champ, will go against Rangeley. All three Eastern Maine teams won the state finals last season.

The 1979 and 1980 state games seem to be the closest to what happened this year. Class B Gorham and Stearns played twice in a row, Class C Hodgdon repeated as EM champ but played two different opponents. Buckfield did the same thing in Class D in those seasons.

No one seemed to know what to make of this year’s six-team repeat, but everyone seemed intrigued and excited.

“That is awesome,” Calais senior Lanna Martin said. “The schools that got to where we are, everyone’s worked hard for it. You have to give credit to all the schools that won here today, Woodland and MDI and us. We’re all hardworking teams and we’re going to give it all we got.”

Class A could produce a similar result: 2001 EM winner Nokomis of Newport is among the favorites in Eastern Maine, and McAuley of Portland is undefeated and a Western Maine favorite.

A present for a Calais mother

Sisters Lanna Martin and Crystal Martin are single-minded when they play basketball for Eastern Maine champion Calais, but the standout players had someone special in mind before Saturday night’s regional final against Penquis of Milo.

The sisters’ mother, Mona Martin, celebrated her birthday Saturday (she declined to give her age).

Lanna Martin said her mother asked for one birthday present before the game. So the 58-44 win and Eastern Maine title came gift-wrapped.

“We all knew that coming in and Mom’s happy out there,” Lanna said. “We made her day.”

Eye of Alvin’s tiger

Jonesport-Beals star Alvin Beal, a 6-foot, 260-pound low-post force, sports a tattoo on one of his meaty biceps.

From a distance, you can’t really tell what it is. Up close, it’s obviously a pretty cool tiger.

Beal said he doesn’t really have any particular preference for tigers, but ended up with the skin art more or less by default.

“I was 16 when I got it,” he said. “I just wanted something there. Dumb, really.”

After poring over the available patterns, Beal found out something: Nothing really caught his eye.

“I looked through a book and it didn’t have much in it,” he said. “I see the tiger and I was like, ‘Well, I guess that’s the best-looking one in here, so I’ll take that one.”

In case you’re wondering, Beal didn’t go to an actual, official tattoo parlor to get his work done at the ripe old age of 16. He went to a man who did the work in a nearby town.

“They don’t have a [tattoo] place,” Beal said. “They have a guy who put it on. He wasn’t supposed to.”

Pregame ritual soothes nerves

In the hour and a half before they were to take the floor Saturday against MDI, the Houlton girls basketball team performed an unusual ritual to release some tension.

After gathering for a short prayer in the tip-off circle of the Bangor Auditorium floor, the Shiretowners lined up in four corners of one-half of the court and ran through their layup drill – without a ball.

The girls went through the drill pretending to make passes, layup attempts and rebounds. They also went through their reverse layup drill in the same way.

“We all come extremely nervous so when we do that it kind of gets the jitters out so it makes us more calm when you get on the floor,” said Kasey Cleary, who scored nine points in Houlton’s 58-37 loss to MDI.

“We can’t touch a ball before the clock starts for warmups so we try to get as loose as we can. Fifteen minutes goes pretty quick when you’re out there.”

Russell heroic in final game

Four-year Penquis star Megan Russell wasn’t not going to play in Saturday’s EM Class C final, but it was definitely a weaker Russell on the floor for the game against Calais.

Russell had injured her left foot Friday night when she tried to save an ball from going out of bounds. Her foot came down on the slanted end of the floor and was sore Saturday morning.

She was limped a little in the game Saturday and went to the bench at one point.

“I couldn’t do the normal stuff I do, even dribbling,” said the point guard, who had seven points, two steals and two assists and played until her father and coach Wally Russell put his subs in late. “By the end of the game I didn’t even really want the ball because I felt like I couldn’t move as fast. I felt my job at the end of the game was just to set screens.”