AUGUSTA, Maine — The Skowhegan Indians barely qualified for a trip to the Augusta Civic Center this week, requiring double overtime to outlast Brewer in a Class A North preliminary game.
Now the eighth-ranked Indians are giant killers after stunning top-ranked and previously undefeated Medomak Valley of Waldoboro 54-53 in the regional quarterfinals at the Augusta Civic Center on Saturday night.
“It’s funny,” said Skowhegan senior guard and tri-captain Brendan Curran, who scored a team-high 17 points. “Because that (prelim) was so hard it gave us good experience for tonight. We weren’t going to back down. We’d already been through the hard stuff to get here, we knew we could pull it off.”
Skowhegan’s victory leaves just one of the division’s top four seeds, No. 3 Oceanside of Rockland-Thomaston, still alive after a day of upsets that also included No. 7 Cony of Augusta’s 60-48 win over No. 2 Hampden Academy.
Coach Tom Nadeau’s Skowhegan club (11-9) advances to a semifinal Wednesday against No. 5 Messalonskee of Oakland, a 53-46 winner over No. 4 Gardiner.
“We know every team in this tournament can beat anyone on any given night, as has been shown,” said Curran.
Senior forward Garrett McSweeney added 12 points and was a key part of the defensive effort against 6-foot-7 Medomak Valley center Cameron Allaire.
Allaire scored 16 points, but Skowhegan collapsed its defense around the Panthers’ big man, limiting his touches and forcing Medomak Valley to score more from the perimeter.
“We wanted to make sure they didn’t get easy post touches so we’d always have one guy on Allaire and another guy helping nearby,” said Curran. “He still got some inside but that definitely limited his touches.”
Two late 3-pointers by Kyle Donlin, the second at the buzzer, gave Medomak Valley a 30-25 halftime lead, and the Panthers stretched their advantage to 35-27 early in the third quarter.
But the Panthers (18-1) couldn’t put Skowhegan away, as the Indians rallied behind two 3-pointers from Cole Pierce (11 points) and a third from Cameron Barnes to forge a 38-38 tie entering the fourth quarter.
The teams were tied again at 46-46 tie before Curran scored off a Medomak Valley turnover and fed McSweeney for a fast-break layup that gave the Indians a 50-46 advantage with 2:28 left.
Donlin made two free throws to make it a two-point game before Pierce scored underneath and McSweeney followed a Medomak Valley timeout with two free throws to give Skowhegan its largest lead at 54-48 with 1:01 to go.
Medomak’s Ryan Creamer buried a 3-pointer to make it 54-51 with 50 seconds left and Allaire made two free throws with 16.1 seconds remaining to cut the gap to a single point.
But after Curran missed the front end of a one-and-one Skowhegan closed down the inside defensively and the Panthers came up empty on a final 3-point try.
Donlin scored a game-high 19 points for Medomak Valley.
