BANGOR, Maine — As much as the Bangor Auditorium was renowned as a basketball hotbed, its replacement may be an even busier hoops haven this winter.
Not only will the University of Maine will play most of its men’s and women’s basketball games at the Cross Insurance Center, but both John Bapst and Brewer high schools will play nearly all of their varsity home contests at the the new facility.
For John Bapst, the move represents a continuing relationship between the school and the city of Bangor. The Crusaders were a longtime tenant of the Bangor Auditorium, which was torn down last summer before the Cross Center was opened in September.
“We are very fortunate in that we will be playing all of our boys and girls home games in the Cross Center,” said John Bapst athletic administrator and boys varsity basketball coach Rick Sinclair.
John Bapst and Brewer had to wait until the University of Maine’s America East conference schedule was confirmed earlier this fall before locking in their own home dates at the new facility.
John Bapst’s first regular-season games at the Cross Insurance Center will be a girls contest against Old Town on Dec. 10 and a boys game against Old Town on Dec. 12.
Brewer has scheduled all but two of its varsity home games this winter at the Cross Center while renovations are being done at its high school gymnasium.
“We submitted 13 dates, and all but the one date was available,” said Brewer athletic administrator Dave Utterback.
The lone exception is a Jan. 28 varsity doubleheader against Lewiston. Utterback said Wednesday that a final site for those games has not yet been determined.
Brewer will host Hampden Academy in a varsity doubleheader on Friday, Dec. 6, the opening night of the 2013-14 season, with the boys game between the Witches and defending state champion Hampden scheduled for 6 p.m. followed by the girls game between the rivals at 8 p.m.
Utterback said plans are in the works to celebrate those first countable varsity games at the Cross Center, with commemorative T-shirts to be available and rally towels for fans of each school.
Brewer has several other varsity doubleheaders scheduled at the Cross Center, along with three-game (varsity, junior varsity and freshman-first team) home dates against Bangor, Lawrence of Fairfield, Messalonskee of Oakland and Skowhegan.
Other Brewer subvarsity home games this winter will be played at the city’s Center Street gymnasium.
John Bapst, Brewer and Orono High School also will kick off their preseason schedules at the Cross Insurance Center with the inaugural Smokey Lawrence Memorial Tournament on Saturday, Nov. 23.
The tournament honors the late Frederick “Smokey” Lawrence, a longtime official, assigner, scoreboard operator and timer for sporting events throughout the Bangor region with connections to all three schools. Lawrence died in September 2012 at age 72.
The one-day event will feature a round-robin format involving boys and girls varsity teams from the three schools. Three girls games will be played during the afternoon session, followed by three boys contests that evening.
“[Smokey] was very involved with Brewer and Bapst,” said Sinclair, “so we thought we would try to keep his name involved with our programs. Both Dave and I thought highly of Smokey, as many people did.”
Sinclair and Utterback added that they hope to make the tournament an annual event.
Bucksport HoF inducts 8
A former Maine Mr. Baseball and a one-time All-Big East Conference college softball player were among eight inductees into the Bucksport High School Sports Hall of Fame last Saturday night.
Craig Harvey (Class of 2000) earned Mr. Baseball honors as a senior while leading the Golden Bucks to the Eastern Maine Class B championship. He also was a two-time all-state and All-Penobscot Valley Conference honoree.
Jennifer Wardwell (1993) was a three-time all-state and all-PVC choice in softball who compiled a career pitching record of 32-3 with a 0.33 earned run average to go with a .421 batting average. Wardwell went on to play softball at the University of Connecticut, where she was named to the All-Big East team as a senior.
Other inductees were baseball standout George “Lefty” Adams, wrestler Cory Bennett, runner Pattie (Clapper) Craig, football-track standout Greg Harrison, football star Blair Taylor and softball pitcher Lisa (Tilley) Sutherland.
