BANGOR – The score at halftime was Brewer 20, Mims 20. Unfortunately for the Witches, Brunswick has a number of weapons to draw on – too many Friday night for Brewer to handle.

Brunswick’s Ralph Mims finished with 32 points and the top-seeded Dragons built up a 19-point halftime lead and held the fifth-seeded Witches at bay the rest of the way for a 71-50 win in an Eastern Maine Class A boys basketball semifinal at the Bangor Auditorium.

The 20-0 Dragons will be seeking their second straight EM title tonight when they play second-seeded Bangor at approximately 8:45.

The defending state champs jumped on the Witches early behind the shooting of 6-foot-3 senior forward Drew Pelletier and took an 11-3 lead. Pelletier, who finished with 19 points, said the Dragons felt that they needed to send an early message to their opponents.

“We came out with our pressure, our full-court press and that put us ahead early. We forced them into quick shots. We wanted to force the tempo,” Pelletier said.

That they did. The Dragons ran at every opportunity and seemed to force the Witches into rushing their shots.

Then Mims began to impose his will on the game. He made 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions and Pelletier followed with another 3-pointer. By the time the first quarter buzzer sounded, which came moments after Pelletier connected on a running bank shot, the score was 26-10 and even the most diehard Brewer fans had to know the Witches were in trouble.

“They’re a team that scores a lot of points in a hurry,” Brewer coach Mark Reed said. “They got some buckets on us early in the game and just jumped on us and we were playing chase from there on out.”

The Witches managed to slow Brunswick down somewhat, holding the Dragons to 13 points in the second quarter. But Mims scored eight of those points in less than one minute starting with 1:19 remaining in the half and Brunswick led 39-20 after two quarters.

Equally impressive was the play of Brunswick’s 6-3 point guard Justin Alexander. The senior distributed the ball well and he scored 10 points by using his size around the basket.

Looming in the middle for Brunswick was 6-6 senior center Taylor Caron, who finished with eight rebounds. He forced Brewer’s big men, J.T. Breindel and Chad Gomm, to alter or hurry their shots by being in the area.

The Witches shot just 18-for-55 from the floor while Brunswick converted on 28-of-52.

“This is pretty much their home floor and Bangor was before this. So I’m sure the Bangor fans that were watching the Bangor game would rather see Brewer win than us,” Caron said. “So, we knew there was going to be twice as many fans for them and we needed to get the message straight that we were here to win.”

Brewer played better in the second half. Breindel led the Witches with 19 points, 10 coming in the second half. He also grabbed nine rebounds. But the Witches were unable to make inroads on the Brunswick lead.

Senior Jon Bell had 15 points and junior Andy Frost had 12 points while Gomm pulled down eight rebounds.

DRAGONS 71, WITCHES 50

Brewer (15-6) Brunswick (20-0)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Bzn-Klstn 0 0 0 0 0 Alexander 5 10

Sargent 0 4 0 0 0 Gauvin 0 0 0

Rohn 0 0 0 0 0 Kaplan 0 0 0 0

Stewart 0 1 0 1 0 Mims 12 21 32

McAvoy 0 0 0 0 0 Duffy 1 3 2

I. Bell 0 1 0 0 0 Williams 1 2

J. Bell 6 13 0 2 15 Pelletier 8 15 1 1 19

Wilson 0 1 0 0 0 LaPrad 0 1 1

Frost 3 7 4 7 12 Caron 1 2 4

Breindel 7 18 4 5 19 Zamore 0 1 0

McGary 0 2 0 0 0 Baribeau 0 1

Young 0 1 0 0 0

Gomm 2 7 0 0 4

Totals 18 55 8 15 50 28 52 12 71

Brewer 10 20 38 50

Brunswick 26 39 57 71

3-pt. goals ? Brewer (6-21): J. Bell 3-11, Frost 2-3, Breindel 1-3, Sargent 0-2, I. Bell 0-1, Gomm 0-1; Brunswick (7-16): Mims 5-8, Pelletier 2-6, Zamore 0-1, Williams 0-1