BREWER, Maine — Brewer High School girls basketball coach Chris Horr thinks the tallest girl on his roster is 5-foot-6 and a half inches.
And 6-1 Bangor High junior center Katie Butler took full advantage as she scored 18 points and grabbed 15 rebounds, both game-highs, to lead the Rams to a 54-42 triumph Saturday night.
Class AA North Bangor improved to 8-6 while Class A North Brewer fell to 5-9 after losing its third in a row.
Behind Butler, the Rams outrebounded the undersized Witches 36-17.
Freshman guard Olivia Sharrow had nine points and four assists for the Rams and senior guard Sarah Bragg contributed eight points as did junior guard Emma Payne.
Payne and senior Quinn Wood, who chipped in five points, three rebounds and two steals, came off the bench to give the Rams a big lift. Emily Gilmore had six rebounds and three assists.
Junior guard Courtney Pearson paced Brewer with 13 points, sophomore Cassidy Smith had nine points and three rebounds and Sierra Strang came off the bench to score seven points. Ellie Horr dished out five assists.
“I’m happy with how the team played,” said Butler. “We always have people who are able to come in and contribute for us. We’re pretty well-rounded.”
The Witches, normally a tenacious player-to-player team that likes to press, resorted to a 1-2-2 and double-teamed Butler to try to neutralize her but if Butler didn’t think she could drive to the basket, she would kick it out to one of her players on the perimeter.
“We knew they didn’t have a ton of size and we figured they’d pack it in. So I would kick it out for shots or sometimes I found myself able to get to the basket,” said Butler.
“They were doubling down on her but Katie kept her composure and did real well when everyone was around her,” said Bragg.
“We held them for a good while in the first half but then Katie got away from us. She’s a good player who knows what she’s doing,” said Brewer’s Pearson. “We picked up a lot of fouls and that hurt us. And their bench is pretty solid.”
Brewer led 10-9 after the first quarter but the Rams took the lead for good with an 8-0 run to open the second period as Butler converted an inbounds pass from Wood, Gilmore fed Payne for a layup, Payne put in an offensive rebound and Sharrow scored with a reverse, over-the-head shot from in close.
“Payne did some really good things,” said Bangor coach Joe Johnson whose Rams did a nice job extending its 2-3 zone to limit Brewer to a 5-for-26 shooting performance from beyond the three-point arc and a 14-for-47 performance overall from the floor.
Bangor took a 22-16 lead into the half and outscored Brewer 16-8 in the third quarter to build the lead to 38-24.
The Rams fed Butler inside and she scored 10 of their 16 points in the third period.
Bangor led by as much as 18 in the fourth quarter before both teams pulled their starters.
“Bangor has a good team. They did a good job countering what we did,” said second-year Brewer coach Horr, who thought his team turned in a respectable performance. “Katie’s a great player. We didn’t shoot nearly as well as we have been.”