BANGOR, Maine — The eighth-seeded Lee Academy Pandas had the momentum entering the fourth quarter of their Eastern Maine Class C quarterfinal against top-seeded Calais Tuesday afternoon.
Lee had closed out the third quarter with 12-3 spurt behind sophomore reserve Jeff Sun’s seven points, to pull within 41-38.
But the Blue Devils held the Pandas without a point until there was just 1:29 remaining in regulation en route to an impressive 59-42 triumph and a berth in Friday night’s 8:35 p.m. semifinal against No. 4 Central of Corinth, which is 14-5.
Calais scored the first 13 points of the fourth quarter, six coming on Kyle Johnson free throws, before Lewis Wang’s two free throws ended the drought. Nathanael Thurlow’s basket with 1:03 left was the only one of the quarter for Lee Academy, which missed its first nine shots.
The four-point quarter was the lowest-scoring quarter of the season for 13-7 Lee Academy, and the 42 points was a season-low. The Pandas had averaged 63.2 points per game.
“We stopped them from getting into the paint, and we made them shoot jump shots,” said Calais sophomore forward Travon Rhodes, who had nine points.
“We played defense like we know how to. We pride ourselves in our defense,” said senior guard Johnson, who finished with 15 points, six rebounds, five assists and two steals. “We were trying to hold them under 50 points because we know we can score more than that even if our offense isn’t working [well].”
The taller Blue Devils completely controlled the boards, outrebounding Lee 40-15.
Andre Paul paced the Blue Devils with 21 points and 10 rebounds, both game-highs, followed by Johnson and Rhodes. Tyler Niles had five points, eight rebounds and two steals, and Matt Perkins grabbed six rebounds.
“If you had told me before the game that we’d have 38 points with a minute and a half left, I would have been shocked,” said Lee Academy coach Randy Harris. “We’ve been a real good offensive team, even in the games we’ve lost. They’re a veteran team, and they did a good job switching on all screens and stuff and not letting us get to the rim like they were able to do against us. And when we missed our outside shots, they boxed out.
“We picked a bad time to have our worst offensive night of the season,” he added.
Calais played man-to-man the entire game and did an exceptional job double-teaming Lee Academy scoring leader Charles Tung-Fang. He finished with 18 points, but 13 came in the first half. He also had three rebounds and two steals.
“We had a bad quarter,” said Tung-Fang.
Wang had eight points and Sun, primarily a junior varsity player, had his seven third-quarter points, including a steal and layup to close out the period.