BREWER, Maine — The Brewer High School boys basketball team has no more home games scheduled this winter than it did a season ago — except the Witches truly are at home this year.
Coach Clayton Blood’s club played its home contests during the 2013-14 campaign across the Penobscot River at Bangor’s Cross Insurance Center while a renovation project continued at the Brewer campus.
And while the team’s temporary housing essentially was brand new, it just wasn’t quite the same as home — and that combined with a youthful roster contributed to the team’s 5-13 record.
A year later the team’s nucleus is now more experienced, its homecourt advantage has been restored, and the difference is noticeable.
A 61-58 victory over visiting Oxford Hills of South Paris on Saturday enabled Brewer to match last season’s victory total at the midpoint of this winter’s schedule — with its 5-4 overall record including a 4-1 mark at home.
“Since we had the renovations at the school we really didn’t get to play at home last year,” said Brewer junior forward Matt Pushard. “The Cross Center was nice, but it always seemed like every game we were playing away and it wasn’t the same feeling as being in our own locker room, being in our own gym and having our section of student fans there.
“Some of our fans who usually come to all our home games didn’t go to all the games at the Cross Center because it was so expensive for some of the stuff there, but it feels so much better being at home now and knowing that everything is back to normal. It feels great.”
The advantage inherent in playing at home in any sport isn’t new, with familiar surroundings and supportive crowds a source of motivation since the dawn of competition.
But its impact has been readily apparent so far this winter in the widespread Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class A ranks, which stretch from Bangor, Brewer and Hampden Academy in the north to South Paris, Lewiston-Auburn and Brunswick to the south.
The top nine teams in the division — those that would qualify for postseason play if the season ended today — have a combined 34-10 record at home while going just 18-23 on the road.
“I think most teams play better on their home court, and there’s so much parity that I think it’s going to be hard to win road games,” said Hampden coach Russ Bartlett, whose Broncos escaped a road trip to neighboring Bangor with a 58-50 overtime victory Tuesday night.
“Most teams tend to shoot better on their home court and consequently, with so little margin for error every night, I think the home team really does have an advantage.”
Throw out divisional leaders Edward Little of Auburn (9-0 overall) and Hampden Academy (8-1), and the next seven schools — all with between three and five losses apiece — are 24-10 at home and just 11-22 on the road.
“You check the KVAC this year for Class A basketball and there’s so much parity that the home court really does make a difference,” said Blood.
And many of those cherished road victories by the top teams are narrow escapes rather than emphatic statements. Four of Edward Little’s six road wins have come by single digits, while Hampden trailed Bangor by 13 points midway through the third quarter before rallying to force overtime and then outscoring the Rams 10-2 during the extra period.
“If you look at the records, maybe we were favored here tonight,” said Bartlett after the Bangor game, “but we’ve had three games that went overtime that we could have lost and we’d be 5-4.
“We’ve been pretty fortunate in a couple of situations, and sometimes you make your breaks and sometimes you don’t. We’ve been fortunate enough to win all three of those overtime games but they obviously could have gone the other way.”
Brewer’s lack of a true home schedule last winter and its resulting final record likely were factors in its omission from the top eight contenders announced in the conference’s annual preseason coaches poll. It’s a prognostication the Witches have been working hard to debunk within the tightly contested KVAC, and that begins with capitalizing on their homecourt advantage.
“I don’t think it was wrong, I think we earned that disrespect with our five wins last year,” said Blood. “But it hurt. It’s a slam, and I would hope that any team that isn’t picked to be very good doesn’t like it.”
That source of motivation in conjunction with the return to their true home court served the Witches well on opening night when they edged Hampden — the four-time defending Eastern A champion — 43-38 back on Dec. 5.
Since then Brewer’s season has featured mostly wins at home and mostly losses on the road — a typical scenario for most teams within the league, with Saturday’s late-afternoon home win over an Oxford Hills team that reached last year’s regional final another step toward the program’s goal of returning to tournament play at the Augusta Civic Center for the first time since 2010.
“The Hampden game was our first game back home and it was very exciting. This was a big one for us because it wasn’t very exciting,” said Blood, whose team took an early lead over Oxford Hills and never trailed, though the Vikings tied the game early in the fourth quarter.
“When we came out to warm up it was like a first-team game. There was no game beforehand, there was no one in the gym, but they came out and played and that was great because you have to seize that homecourt advantage when you can.”
The Witches, currently ranked sixth in Eastern A, begin the second half of their schedule this week with a pair of local road games. First they face their rematch with Hampden on Thursday night. Then they play Bangor for the first time this season on Saturday afternoon.
“We’re feeling good,” said senior guard Jared St. Thomas. “I really think we’ve improved a lot. We won our first game, lost our next two, then won one and lost one, but now we’ve won two in a row and I think we’re going to keep winning.”
