BANGOR, Maine — With its lead slipping away early in the fourth quarter Friday afternoon, the Dexter girls basketball team was in need of a timeout.
But the ultimate message that may have come through during that respite wasn’t as much strategic as it was a reminder of the four-year journey the seven seniors on the squad had taken to get one final chance to pursue their championship dream.
No. 4 Dexter emerged from that break refocused and soon scored seven straight points to regain control en route to a 43-37 victory over No. 8 Mattanawcook Academy of Lincoln in their Eastern Maine Class C semifinal at the Cross Insurance Center.
“We’ve got a lot of seniors on this team, and we’re all fighting to stay in this,” said Dexter senior guard Michaela White, whose team had reached this game with a dramatic overtime victory over defending state champion Calais in the quarterfinals.
“We’ve played in some tough situations this year, last game especially, so I think we’re prepared to handle these situations pretty well, and we did today. We took the pressure well and got back to where we wanted to be.”
Dexter (18-2) will face No. 2 Houlton in Saturday night’s regional final. The teams did not meet this season, but Houlton edged the Tigers 38-36 in last year’s quarterfinals.
Mattanawcook, which upended top-ranked Narraguagus of Harrington in the quarters, finishes 13-8.
Dexter built a 20-11 halftime lead by holding Mattanawcook to 16 percent (three of 18) shooting from the field, and that margin grew to 32-19 on a 3-point play by sophomore center Megan Peach late in the third quarter.
But the Lynx finally got untracked offensively and scored the game’s next nine points, seven by senior guard Courtney McIntyre, to draw within 32-28 with 6:16 left in the game.
McIntyre’s final point of that stretch, a free throw, came shortly after Dexter coach Jody Grant had called time with 6:50 left in an effort to stall the Lynx’ momentum.
“I’d like to tell you I said something great, but it was just getting back to our defense,” he said. “That run wasn’t offense, it was defensively predicated, but we’ve got a lot of senior players, and they made some big shots today.”
White finally countered Mattanawcook Academy’s scoring run with a layup off an Abbey Jordan inbounding pass. Pratt followed with her third 3-pointer, then Peyton Watson scored on a drive to restore Dexter to a 39-28 advantage with 3:48 left.
White and Pratt led Dexter with 12 points each and were named co-Darling’s/BDN Players of the Game. McIntyre scored 16 to lead Mattanawcook Academy.
“We expect a lot of ourselves,” said White. “We work really hard, we play year-round, basketball’s been a huge devotion in all of our lives so this is something we always shoot for, and it’s just so nice to finally be able to say I’m playing in an Eastern Maine game.”
