It’s a shame that two of the state’s finest senior girls basketball players had to sit on the bench for a Maine McDonald’s East-West all-star game Saturday. It’s also too bad that their spots in the roster couldn’t have been filled with two healthy players.

But the lateness of the season, uncertainty about the injured girls’ status, and the rules of the Maine Association of Basketball Coaches, which organizes the all-star voting, kept the 10-player team at eight.

Lauren Withey of Camden Hills and Erskine of South China’s Donna Cowing both suffered knee injuries during the high school basketball season (Withey tore a ligament in the preseason).

That left eight healthy players for the East team, while the West all-stars had a full complement of 10 players. Not that it mattered in the end – the East outlasted the West and won 67-63.

“I kind of feel a little bad and I wish I had made a call. But I didn’t know those two weren’t going to play,” said Nokomis of Newport coach Earl Anderson, who skippered the A-B team along with MDI’s Burt Barker.

“Where it bothered us a little was in practice where we couldn’t go 5-on-5,” he added. “But I think everyone had pretty good playing time and in the end it might have worked out better because everyone got more playing time.”

The East C-D team added two players in the days before the game as two players opted not to participate in any of the all-star events (a banquet was held Friday night before the games).

MABC president Jim Ray said the injury situation has been raised in the past, but the MABC prefers to stay with honoring just 10 players.

“If you add people then you have 11 or 12 kids, and do you recognize everyone, or just the injured kids, or not the injured kids and the kids who are added,” Ray said. “We do try to take it as it comes and look at each case.”

Anderson said with his high school season extended into the beginning of March – the Warriors made it to the Eastern Maine Class A final where they were the runners-up to Cony of Augusta – he wasn’t thinking as much about the all-star team.

And he assumed that with both Withey and Cowing playing for their respective high school teams at the end of the season they would also play in the all-star game.

But Cowing had knee surgery last Monday and Withey underwent her operation about 11/2 weeks ago.

“I had kind of assumed they would hold off [on surgery],” Anderson said.

If there could have been replacements, Anderson would have liked to see Bangor’s Katherine Miller and Hampden’s Megan Magoon on the team, and he would have liked to have had Miller on the team regardless. But because of the balloting and possibly the number of Class A coaches in the two different Eastern Maine Class A leagues (the Big East Conference and the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference), Miller may have been overlooked.

“There are only seven Big East coaches voting and the KVAC has 12 votes,” he said. “[The KVAC coaches] don’t really see her. Last year [Bangor stars Alison Smith, Terra Curtis, and Jlynn Frazier] dominated and she was a role player. This year with those kids gone she had a good year, but the KVAC coaches don’t see that. … It’s not an intentional snub, but it’s really too bad.”

Anderson said there are 50-60 names on the A-B ballot and each coach votes for 10 players. The top 10 players are named all-stars.

The Big East decides its nominees in the preseason when each coach is asked to name the team’s top players. Those names are submitted to the MABC and go on the ballot.

The situation on the C-D team was a bit different with Morgan Drew of Calais and Sarah Snider of Narraguagus in Harrington having voluntarily dropped out. Woodland stars Ashley Marble, a Miss Maine basketball finalist, and Julia Knights, who were not on the team originally because Woodland was late sending in some forms, were added last week.

Drew and Snider withdrew because of publicity surrounding burglary charges against them.

Anderson does not normally vote for the C-D players because he doesn’t know the players well enough, but he was surprised to see Marble’s name was not on the ballot.

“I thought, wait a second, there’s no Ashley Marble on here,” he said. “[Adding Marble and Knights] bailed them out of some embarrassment.”

Jessica Bloch’s High school report is published Tuesdays. She can be reached at 990-8193, 1-800-310-8600 or jbloch@bangordailynews.net.