It seems fitting that Heidi Deery, in her first season back as the Rangeley girls basketball coach, has skippered the Lakers to their first Class D state championship game since 1993.

Deery played her final two years of high school ball at the school and the Lakers won the title in 1984, her senior season. In 1989 she returned to coach her alma mater, leading them to the 1993 championship before leaving the position in 1994. Under Deery, Rangeley won two Western Maine titles.

This season, with a job as a career educator at the school, she’s back for her second coaching stint. And – no surprise – Rangeley is back in the state championship game.

The Lakers, who won the Western Maine championship last Saturday in a victory over Richmond, will take on Eastern Maine champion Woodland at 7:05 p.m. Thursday at the Bangor Auditorium.

“I feel pretty confident and I think the girls, because of my experience and their hard work this year, are feeling pretty confident,” said Deery.

Rangeley went 16-2 in the regular season, with two close losses. Saturday’s regional game was also close – the Lakers needed a putback off a rebound to win 53-52.

The Lakers eked out the win over the Richmond thanks to a Sarah Drosdik rebound of a Karen Wing free-throw miss with eight seconds left in the game. Rangeley had an 11-point lead at one point.

“[The close win] says to me that odds are we keep ourselves in the ball game,” Deery said. “In the case of Saturday we played 21/2 strong quarters and the last 12 minutes we didn’t play up to our capability but we did what we had to do to win.”

While Rangeley doesn’t have the wealth of height that Woodland does, the Lakers have enough in common with the Dragons to make this an even matchup.

Defensively, Rangeley is most comfortable in man-to-man, Deery said, but the squad can easily adjust to zone where necessary and has been doing so in the second part of the season. The Lakers like to run and pressure the ball.

“Our defense has been a big factor for us,” she added.

On offense Rangeley gets balanced scoring from three different players and is capable of big-time numbers. The Lakers haven’t had trouble scoring this season.

“At times we’ve had different players get 20-plus points,” Deery said. “It’s hard to tell where our offense may come from night to night but we don’t have trouble scoring 40 or 50 points, and we have scored around 70 points in about 12 games.

Drosdik, Wing and Lindsay Ellis have all contributed to the Lakers’ balanced offense. The three starters all averaged around 12-13 points per tournament game. Wing, a 5-foot-10 center, grabbed 6.3 rebounds per contest in the tourney and Drosdik tallied 5.3.

Guards Ellis and Adrian Goodwin handed out 3.6 assists apiece per game and Goodwin was the team’s tourney steal-leader with 3.3 per contest. Forward Kelly Grant, the fifth starter, helps out on the rebounding end.

Rangeley’s key bench players are Cassie Frost, Alicia Frost-Kolva (no relation), and Katie Drosdik (Sarah Drosdik’s sister).

Deery was pleased with her bench in the Western Maine tourney, but the Lakers know it’s going to take a total effort to defeat the athletic, deep Dragons.

“We’re going to have to play our game and play well,” Deery said. “If we do that we will be in the game, and when you’re in the game you never know what’s going to happen. We’re ready.”