AUGUSTA, Maine — The preparation for this year’s boys basketball season began before school started, according to senior center Cody St. Germain of Dirigo High of Dixfield.
“Last summer — for the first time, I think — everyone showed up for almost every individual workout with coach [Travis Magnusson],” said St. Germain. “Everybody had their eye on the prize.”
That prize was the state Class C championship, which Dirigo had not won since 1983.
The Cougars were back for the fourth straight year Saturday night at the Augusta Civic Center, facing a familiar foe — the defending state champion Lee Academy Pandas.
This time, it went the Cougars’ way as St. Germain and senior forward Ben Holmes powered the Cougars to a 74-67 victory over the Pandas.
Lee defeated Dirigo 65-55 in last year’s final.
“It was a great game [Saturday],” said Magnusson. “[The Pandas] are so athletic, they’re almost like a college team.”
But Magnusson found his players were up to the challenge.
“They pushed us to play our best game all year,” he said.
St. Germain scored a game-high 26 points, including a free throw and three field goals as the Cougars (21-1) pulled away in the fourth quarter. The free throw tied the game at 58 with 6:16 remaining, two baskets helped push the lead to five points at 64-59 and the third one gave his team a 71-65 margin with 1:25 to go.
Ben Holmes scored six of his 16 points in the fourth quarter for the Cougars.
The Pandas (19-3) tried to hit 3-pointers to get back into it, but none found their mark. Free throws finished the scoring for both teams.
“It was a battle, for sure. … It was the kind of game we anticipated,” said Lee senior guard DJ Johnson.
“We had our chances, we just didn’t get enough stops,” said Lee coach Randy Harris.
Josh Turbide and Caleb Turner added nine points each for Dirigo.
Boubacar Diallo sparked the Pandas with 19 points, Jasil Elder had 16, Johnson 12 and Haris Karagic 11.
The game was tied at the end of each of the first three quarters as neither team could hold a lead.
Dirigo pulled ahead initially, taking a 13-8 edge in the first four minutes, but Diallo’s eight points highlighted an 11-2 run — with two of his 3-pointers as bookends — and Lee was suddenly up 19-15 with 2:10 left in the first.
Dirigo tied it at 19-19 to end the first quarter, then St. German scored five of his seven second-quarter points to give the Cougars another short-lived lead.
Elder, a senior guard, turned that around with five points during a 12-3 Lee run, kicked off by a Johnson 3-pointer, that tied the game at 39 at the half.
Elder stayed hot in the third quarter, scoring seven of the Pandas’ 14 points, but Lee’s 53-50 lead was wiped out by Hunter Ross’ 3-pointer at the buzzer.
That’s when St. Germain and Holmes started making life miserable for the Pandas.
“St. Germain, we had no answer for him,” said Harris.
“They had trouble with Cody down low,” said Magnusson, but Holmes was important down there, too.
“In the beginning, we were settling for outside shots,” said Holmes. “We needed to attack the rim more, so I did.”
St. Germain also answered that call.
“He’s so good, we want him to attack the basket,” said Magnusson. “He needed to make special shots and he did.”
“He has long arms and good moves around the basket,” said Johnson.
Harris accepted the blame for not calling timeouts to make defensive changes, instead trying to make them on the fly.
As a consequence, said Harris, “[Josh] Turbide hit two 3s in transition.”
Defensive changes worked for Dirigo.
Karagic scored six points in the first quarter, and Diallo started slicing in for layups and hitting 3-pointer for 10 first-quarter points.
That slowed then stopped in the second half when the Cougars went almost exclusively to man-to-man defense.
“The key was we locked them down defensively. We got the defensive stops we needed,” said Magnusson.
The Pandas weren’t able to get open as easily and often got only one shot.
“We would go dry on a possession and they would go down and score,” said Harris. “That’s a recipe for disaster.”
St. Germain, who only played eight minutes last year because of foul trouble, was happy to be able to help his school pull off the win.
“We’re the closest-knit team in the state,” he said. “It’s awesome how close everybody is.”
Looks like LEE needs to recruit better if they hope to win the gold next season. Great win by Dirigo that was a win for the teams that don’t recruit and can only use talent from their own school district. Good game to watch I must say and the result was even better! So LEE fans what imports do you guys have coming in next season?
Duh, Trainer saya,dem er zwei sieben Seitenenden von Senegal eingezogen hat, drei schnell und magere Leapers von Ghana, vier hohe Spieler von Haiti, und zwei monster von China. Sie tun nicht speaka die Sprache, aber alle sind auf Stipendien. Heh! Heh!
That was the best game all tourney, up and down tied after each of the first three quarters and the team that had more heart won. Dirigo had lost 3 straight years and these kids would not be denied the gold ball. When you have players that do not grow up watching the tournament and do not have history with the school they don’t have as much at stake. Both teams deserve a lot of credit for the effort they put in but clearly the better TEAM won.
There’s kind of some justice in the team with the “ringers” losing……….just saying.
I checked the Lee Academy webb site today and noticed that they have an ed tech teaching math classes. Is this the high quality education they offer for 25 thousand dollars a years for the dorm students?
Anyone who believes anything deerhntr says is about as smart as a rock.
Check out their website and look under staff and you will be as smart as a rock
I hope everyone does check out their website and look at all staff and all of the information about the staff just because someone had been an Ed Tech does not mean they have not done what is necessary to be qualified to teach….as usual you misrepresent and twist facts for any reason you can find against Lee.
Why isn’t it in his bio? Lovepanda? This isn’t the first time they had a person teaching without a degree. I pulled my child from this ed tech’s class this fall when I found out who the the person was teaching the 2 math classes.
Not all teachers have degrees in Education. And what is this crap….and I quote you “I checked the Lee Academy webb site today and noticed that they have an ed tech teaching math classes”…..then you say you took your kid out of this teachers class this year….you couldn’t have just looked on the web site this morning AND taken your kid out of this teachers class…..perfect example of why no one should listen to anything you say because you are talking out of both sides of your mouth and obviously have an axe to grind with someone at Lee or Lee Academy in general.
If you want to hate……hate Lee Academy, not the kids who choose to go there and try to better themselves academically and athletically. These kids have learned more this year about life in an area that is 30 years behind the times then any basketball game they will ever play. This includes Hicksfield (dixfield) Maine. By the way, if these two teams played 10 games, Lee wins 7 of them. You recruiting mouths out there, get a life! This is mid level high school basketball. If they are actually recruiting at Lee Academy, they aren’t doing a very good job. Those kids are mediocre at best, along with the Dirigo kids.
Wow…
For a post that asks to put the hate in the right place there sure is a bunch
of hate in it….Calling Dixfield Hicksfield, calling the Lee and Dirigo
players mediocre at best, calling the areas these kids go to school 30 years
behind the times, calling anyone who questions recruiting methods
mouths…Maybe you should move out of that glass house before you pick up your
next rock.
The comments I heard last week in Bangor as well as Saturday in Augusta (directed at the Lee kids) is something I would expect to hear 30-40 years ago, not today. Ask anyone from Dixfield and they will tell you that they are “hicks”. Nothing wrong with that, but when you add racist to it, that does anger me. I did enjoy watching both teams play and was simply stating the fact that they are “average” players, in my opinion. Thanks for your input.
I totally agree that any racist remarks made in
regards to or directly to the Lee players are downright unacceptable…..In any
area unfortunately there are hicks/rednecks/bigots.. I wouldn’t paint the whole
Eastern Maine or Dirigo basketball fans as such however (which I don’t think
you were doing). Everyone has that
brother or uncle that we are not all that proud of…ha ha….
As for the “average” comment. I agree none of the kids playing in the games
will be in the NBA or even D-1 for that matter.
I do believe though for Maine State Class C these kids are at the top of
the talent level.
It is what is is.. a great Class C championship game which
everyone enjoyed.
Great game, both teams and towns should be proud.