BANGOR, Maine — Forgive the George Stevens Academy boys basketball team if it isn’t quite back in the midseason form basketball fans might expect from a program that owns the last three Class C state championships.
Forget that the Eagles graduated a high-scoring Mr. Basketball finalist in Taylor Schildroth and a 6-foot-7 center in Max Mattson, who amassed 1,027 rebounds and 503 blocked shots during his career.
Injuries and illness also slowed the team’s progress early this season.
GSA finally had all of its starters available for the first time this winter Thursday evening, and while the Eagles struggled for three quarters against a stubborn Calais club, defense was the determining factor in their come-from-behind 55-42 victory in the Maine Basketball Hall of Fame Classic tournament at the Cross Insurance Center.
Coach Dwayne Carter’s club (5-1) never led until Isaac Wardwell’s two free throws gave GSA a 35-34 lead 13 seconds into the fourth quarter, but the Eagles soon used their trapping half-court pressure as the catalyst for a run of 13 unanswered points that put this regular-season victory away.
“We’re still getting out the wrinkles, every day we’re getting better and better,” said GSA junior guard Caden Mattson, one of two returning starters from last year’s team. “In the second half we played better defense, we played as a team and we had better communication.
“We have five or six guys who can score, but we don’t have Taylor and Max to bail us out any more so it’s defense that’s going to help us win games.”
Senior forward Percy Zentz and sophomore forward Andrew Szwez paced a balanced GSA offense with 13 points apiece, while senior guard Reece Dannenberg made three 3-pointers for nine points and Wardwell scored eight.
Senior guard Blake Collins scored a game-high 16 points for Calais while junior guard Dawson Critchley added nine points
Defense has been at times an overlooked part of GSA’s three-year run — the Eagles are 69-3 since the start of the 2015-2016 season — primarily because of the team’s offensive explosiveness.
This year that defense may need to be even more prominent as GSA seeks to retain its elite status against a challenging Class C North field that also includes Houlton, Mattanawcook Academy of Lincoln, Fort Kent, Dexter and Penobscot Valley of Howland.
“We played really good defense in the fourth quarter,” said Carter. “That’s going to be the key for us, defense and rebounding, which we’re going to have to do by committee.”
Calais fell to 1-4 amid a brutal early schedule in which the Blue Devils’ opposition has a combined 19-6 record.
“(GSA’s) been through a lot of great experiences,” said Calais coach Darrin Constant, “and while the kids playing now may have been in the shadows before they’ve learned a lot and that showed in the fourth quarter.”
Collins and Critchley helped the Blue Devils score the game’s first seven points. And after George Stevens rallied to tie the game four different times, Calais rebuilt a 34-28 advantage when Collins buried a 3-pointer and teammate J.D. Tunner stole the subsequent inbounds pass and laid the ball in with 2:21 left in the third quarter.
But Calais scored just two points over the next 7 minutes, 25 seconds, as GSA cranked up its 1-2-2 and 1-3-1 half-court traps. The Eagles often turned that pressure into instant scoring bids — a formula they hope to use for the rest of the season.
“In the second half we stepped up our intensity with our zone presses,” said Zentz. “We’ve got five good athletes who can really work hard on defense, and when when we play the way we did in the fourth quarter we can turn that defense into offense.”
