BANGOR – When Brewer’s man-to-man defense is clicking, it can hold a team to fewer than 50 points and win.

But against Brett Doody, not even ropes would have helped the Witches’ defensive corps with Caribou’s 6-foot-5 senior forward.

“I told him the other day that I feel he’s the best player in the state,” Caribou coach Jeff Holmes said after the Vikings’ 83-68 Big East schoolboy basketball win against Brewer at the Bangor Auditorium Saturday afternoon.

“He’s been playing that way, he’s been awesome,” Holmes continued. “But I think the key was not necessarily Brett, but the other guys stepped up and did a real nice job especially when he sat out with foul trouble in the third quarter.”

But by the third quarter, Doody was a spent hurricane which had already knocked out the the Witches’ windows and doors, and thrown a couple of trees on the roof for good measure.

Doody poured in 22 of Caribou’s 45 first-half points before finishing the day with 33, including a trio of 3-pointers.

“Doody’s a great player, offensively he just killed us,” Brewer coach Mark Savage said. “We didn’t sit down and play good defense, we didn’t play good individual or team defense.”

Caribou’s bench held the lead for the Vikings as four out of seven wound up in the scoring column, and did very little to diminsh the team’s 58.3 shooting percentage from the field.

Blowing up and down the court in the first quarter, both teams pushed the ball as Caribou broke the Witches’ full-court press consistently.

The Vikings substituted early and often, using a 10-man rotation which allowed them to keep the pace, while Brewer slowed its game in the second quarter to play a more deliberate offense.

But the Witches’ shooting touch betrayed them through the afternoon as they went 26-61 from the floor. Brewer attempted 14 3-pointers, seven in the second half, but only made three.

That was a relief to Holmes, who was worried his team’s 2-3 zone would give up the shot to 3-point specialist Adam King.

“One thing that kills you in zones is that you give up the perimeter, and you let 3-point shooters get easy looks,” Holmes said. “That’s why I kept yelling `where’s 14, where’s 14,’ because he’s the type of kid who could open a a game up if he gets three or four 3’s in a row.”

Brewer took a 26-23 lead into the second quarter but a 10-0 sprint by the Vikings, including eight Doody points in the quarter’s first two minutes and 25 seconds, left the Witches down by seven.

The Witches attempted to put together a run of their own in the last four minutes of the half, knocking in five of six free throw attempts and field goals from Troy Leavitt and Jason Leighton, but the Vikings matched them basket for basket.

“We didn’t put good ball pressure on tonight, we allowed them to pass whenever they wanted to,” Savage said. “We didn’t pressure them, and we allowed them to penetrate at will.

“We just stood back and let them go,” he said. “If you don’t play good D you can’t win.”

The Witches’ most reliable scorer turned out to be big man Mike Johnston, who poured in 10 of his 19 points in the third quarter.

Reserve forward Buddy Chambers put in four of his five fourth quarter attempts for 11 points, and senior guards Leighton and Leavitt finished with 14 and 10 points, respectively.

Vikings 83, Witches 68

Caribou boys (3-4) Brewer (4-3)

Name G AG F AF TP Name G AG F AF TP

Doody 13 19 2 4 33 Freeman 0 3 0 0 0

Pelkey 1 3 0 0 2 Largay 2 4 0 0 4

Olivero 0 0 0 0 0 King 3 13 0 0 8

Raymond 4 9 5 6 13 Leavitt 3 4 4 6 10

St. Peter 1 1 5 5 7 Leighton 4 8 5 6 14

Hamilton 1 1 0 0 2 Corson 0 1 0 0 0

Dicy 0 0 0 0 0 Duffy 0 0 0 0 0

Umphrey 0 0 0 0 0 Pawson 1 5 0 0 2

Griffeth 2 4 3 4 7 Bennett 0 0 0 0 0

Soucie 3 6 2 2 9 Leavitt 0 1 0 0 0

Belanger 3 5 0 0 8 Hinckley 0 1 0 0 0

Michaud 0 0 2 2 2 Johnston 9 14 1 1 19

Chambers 4 7 3 3 11

Totals 28 48 19 23 83 Totals 26 61 13 16 68

Caribou 23 45 61 83

Brewer 26 35 50 68

3-pt. goals: Caribou (6-12): Doody 3-6, Raymond 0-1, Soucie 1-3, Belanger 2-2; Brewer (3-14): Freeman 0-2, King 2-10, Leighton 1-2