BANGOR, Maine — The Presque Isle girls basketball team was on a mission this season, win the Eastern Maine Class B tournament.
That goal was accomplished Saturday when the top-seeded Wildcats downed two-time defending East champ and No. 2 seed Nokomis of Newport 52-40 in a battle of unbeatens at the Bangor Auditorium.
The Wildcats’ victory avenged semifinal losses to Nokomis the past two years, but PI coach Jeff Hudson said the Wildcats were just determined to win.
“It didn’t matter if it was Nokomis or whoever, we wanted to win the Eastern Maine championship,” he said.
Presque Isle (21-0) will face West titlist Lake Region of Bridgton in Friday’s state game at 7:05 p.m. at the Bangor Auditorium.
That will be a rematch of the 2006 state final, won by Presque Isle 48-36. The 19-2 Lakers, No. 1 in the West, defeated Greely of Cumberland Center 49-30 on Saturday at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland.
While the Heal points said Presque Isle and Nokomis (20-1) should meet in the EM final, learning from the tourney losses the Wildcats suffered the past two years would be the key.
“We knew … that we had to rebound better,” said Hudson. “And we mostly played zone defense [in the past] and we went to almost all man-to-man.”
The Wildcats didn’t win the rebounding, but the improvement was significant, according to Hudson.
Junior forward Meredith Stewart is the tallest ’Cat at 5-foot-11, while the other starters — seniors Chelsea Nickerson and Kayla Richards and juniors Megan Ireland and Chandler Guerrette are all listed as 5-5 guards. Freshman guard Hannah Graham (5-10), junior guard Kaylee Bernier (5-8) and freshman forward Krystal Kingsbury (5-10) also get significant time and they add a little height.
“We were giving up a lot of inches,” said Hudson. “We lost the rebounding by eight, but that’s better than 20 like the last couple of years.”
Defensively, Nickerson guarded Nokomis senior guard and top scorer Marissa Shaw.
“Nickerson is a great defensive player and she answered the challenge,” said Hudson.
Shaw finished with a game-high 14 points, but she also spent a significant amount of time on the bench after picking up two fouls in the closing seconds of the first quarter.
“Marissa is a tough, tough, tough, hard-nosed player,” said Hudson, “but Chelsea is just as tough.”
Nokomis coach Kori Dionne acknowledged the PI adjustments.
“Normally, our size is an advantage,” she said. “They did a good job taking that away from us. … They did a good job fronting our post players, and we had to work hard to get what we did.”
Guerrette and Graham powered the Presque Isle offense with 13 points and 11, respectively.
Those points included a 3-pointer each within a minute of each other in the fourth quarter and a conventional three-point play by Guerrette with 1:50 to go that put Presque Isle up 45-36.
Presque Isle closed out its scoring from the line, hitting seven of nine free throws in the last 1:15.
The loss of Shaw’s offense was particularly evident in the second quarter when the Wildcats used an 11-0 run to go from five down to six up in the space of 3 1/2 minutes.
The Wildcats held the lead for good after that.
“We gave them looks we knew we couldn’t give them,” said Dionne.
The Warriors were able to trim the margin to four with 2:22 to go in the third and to five with 7:36 in the game, but they couldn’t get enough offensive possessions after Presque Isle slowed the game down considerably in the fourth quarter.
“We didn’t want to force shots,” said Richards. “We were in no hurry where we had the lead.
“We knew we had to keep our composure, handle the ball well and not throw away the win.”
Richards ended with seven points for the Wildcats, and Kingsbury and Ireland each had six.
Sophomore guard Kelsie Richards posted 10 points for Nokomis, and sophomore center Anna Mackenzie added eight.
now the Nokomis’ “aint we great” swollen heads can come back to earth
“Presque Isle’s Hannah Graham gets the ball stripped by Nokomis’ Chandler Guerrette during Class B final action on Saturday, Feb. 24, 2012 at the Bangor Auditorium.” This caption is WRONG. Chandler Guerrette is on PI. That is Nokomis’ MARISSA SHAW stripping the ball from Hannah. She is also the toughest, most athletic player in the state of Maine. AND Nokomis’ is not cocky what so ever. They have confidence. They have confidence because they are a GREAT group of basketball players and girls off the court. It just wasn’t their year and that is that. PI is clearly the one’s with the swollen heads since Nokomis heard before basketball season even started that they had done everything to beat us this year. Yes, they proved themselves right BUT our Nokomis girls never talked about the PI girls when clearly that’s all the PI players and coaches had to talk about. And there were many, many other things that got back to us Nokomis fans too. I am just glad that we LOVE our girls and are one of the biggest and proudest communities around.
So glad that someone corrected the caption under the picture. Also, to be noted that Hannah Graham contributed 13point to the game and Chandler Guerrette 12points. And as far as the PI girls “talking” about the Nokomis girls “since before the season started” If that is true, nokomis should be flattered that they were the team to beat. I think that it is only natural that a team that takes you out of the tournament 2years in a row is a team you want to beat. And I think that Kelley17 is naive if she/he thinks that is only a one way street. Nokomis has a great bunch of kids that have been told that they would be winning the eastern maine and likely the state title every year for the next couple of years. And I believe they have the t-shirts to show for it. “3-peat plus 1” Presque Isle girls did not have the swollen egos, they worked their butts off and despite playing one of the best teams in the state. they beat them. They took the lead and would not relent. Sour grapes are unbecoming of the community. You have nothing to be angry about and no need to make excuses. Good kids both sides of the ball. Great supportive communities both sides.