The Houlton High School girls basketball team accomplished a rare feat on Saturday.
The Shiretowners captured the Class C state championship without a senior on their roster.
And Lawrence High School from Fairfield, which won the state Class A championship, will return three starters.
Among the four Eastern Maine titlists, Houlton and Lawrence appear to have the best chance to repeat, although it is unclear where they will be depending upon the proposed reclassification.
Five-time state Class D winner Washburn and Presque Isle, which has won three Eastern Maine B titles in four years, will each lose their two game-changing standouts and will have to do some rebuilding.
Presque Isle lost to Greely of Cumberland Center in the state final.
Houlton coach Shawn Graham said midway through the season, after seeing most of the top teams in Class C, he felt his team was as good as anyone in the class.
“On the other hand, I was concerned with how we would handle the pressures of being in championship games. I also felt after the tournament bracket came out, we had the toughest road because we had Central, [Piscataquis Community High School] and Dexter,” he said.
Houlton’s depth and balance shone through in the state game as freshman phenom Kolleen Bouchard led a group of four players in double figures, and freshman reserve Aspen Flewelling contributed nine points.
Bouchard had 18 points, and Natalie Hill, Rylee Warman and Katie Condon each scored 10.
Graham, in his 11th year at Houlton, said his bench also was instrumental in the team’s success.
“This is the first time in my coaching career that we could go five-on-five in practice, and the [nonstarters] would give the starters a pretty good run. That was good,” said Graham.
The fact they won a lot of lopsided games during the regular season — Houlton won 11 games by at least 20 points — enabled Graham to give “everyone at least a quarter and a half of playing time” and that will serve him well in the future.
“We will be more experienced and even more balanced next year,” said Graham. “Confidence does wonders in girls basketball.”
Bouchard finished the year averaging 20.1 points per game along with 7.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists and three blocked shots. Condon had 11 points and eight rebounds per game. Hill had 9.7 points, 2-3 steals and 3-4 assists, and Warman chipped in 7.7 points per game, according to Graham who expects PCHS and Central to be two of the primary threats next year.
“We played well together,” said Donato. “Every day we did things we liked to do to help us win. And we did a lot of very different things [in games]. Against Bangor, we used a lot of junk defenses and some man-to-man.”
Nia Irving, who racked up 97 points in four postseason victories and averaged 22 points and 16.5 rebounds, was one of the state’s most dominant power forwards, and 3-point specialist Dominique Lewis (13.7 ppg, 6.5 apg) will headline the list of returnees next season along with guard Morgan Boudreau.
Freshmen Olivia Patterson and Molly Folsom will try to replace standout forward Paige Belanger (11.8 ppg) and point guard Camryn Caldwell, shooting guards Kiana Letourneau, Emily Tozier and Hunter Mercier will evolve into more prominent roles.
“We will be a different type of team next year. We won’t be as big, but we’ll be more of a pressing team,” said Donato, who expects Hampden Academy, Messalonskee of Oakland and Mt. Blue of Farmington to be contenders.
Coach Diana Trams’ 22-0 Washburn Beavers will lose 2,000-point scorer and all-everything guard Mackenzie Worcester (27 ppg), who had 37 points in the state-final win over Rangeley, and athletic guard-forward Joan Overman (12 ppg, 8 rpg). That will leave a huge void.
Emmy Churchill had a breakthrough year, and she will join Laine Mette, Grace Braley and Natalie Doody as the key returnees. All are juniors.
Washburn is 106-5 over the past five seasons.
Fort Fairfield, Penobscot Valley of Howland and Machias appear to be the best bets to dethrone Washburn.
Hannah Graham and Krystal Kingsbury, who each averaged 16 ppg, concluded brilliant careers for 19-3 Presque Isle and will present coach Jeff Hudson with a sizeable retooling chore.
But starters Regan Nelson, Taylor Williams and Emily Lagerstrom and valuable sub Emily Wheaton will give him a promising nucleus.
Mount Desert Island, the undefeated top seed, which was upset by Gardiner in the quarterfinals, should be the team to beat behind Sierra Tapley, Kelsey Shaw and the extra motivation obtained from the loss to Gardiner. John Bapst of Bangor and Gardiner also will be in the mix.