The celebration near half-court at Red Barry Gymnasium on Tuesday night wasn’t all that different from what might have taken place at the Augusta Civic Center or the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland had it come after a traditional regional or state championship game.
Sure, it was a little shorter than the typical merriment between the end of a title game and the start of the postgame awards ceremony, but there were no cheerleaders to join in or fans to spur the participants on.
This celebration was all about the participants, in this case the Brewer High School boys basketball team. The Witches unleashed a season’s worth of emotion in a matter of a minute after scoring a 68-62 victory at top-seeded Bangor to win the Big East Classes AA-A pod championship.
It wasn’t even the Witches’ last game of this unique season, a schedule overshadowed on a daily basis by the lingering presence of COVID-19 and the threat it presented not only to the rhythm of the basketball campaign but all facets of school and life.
“For our program this is a big win, especially with the way this season has been with COVID and everything,” said Brewer coach Ben Goodwin, whose team will conclude its season by hosting Ellsworth — a 58-50 winner over Orono in the Big East “B” final — at 7 p.m. Friday for the outright pod title.
“For the kids to get through everything and get a big win like this tonight and get an opportunity to play Friday, that means a lot. It’s a big win for us, and hopefully we can continue to build on it in years to come.”
Second-seeded Brewer (12-2) took a determined attitude into its third meeting of the winter against rival Bangor. The Rams had defeated the Witches in their two tightly contested earlier contests, the most recent a 63-53 overtime decision to conclude the regular season and earn the home-court advantage for the playoff meeting.
This time, Brewer never trailed by more than a point and wasn’t behind at all after scoring the final basket of the second quarter to take a 25-23 halftime lead.
“I feel like our attitude going in was big,” Witches senior guard Kyle Goodrich said. “We had lost to them twice so we knew we needed to put on our best performance and we really did.
“We’ve been playing together since third grade so we’ve been in a lot of situations and we handled this really well.”
Brewer stretched its lead out to as many as 12 points in the final period, then closed out the victory from the foul line.
“I thought we were more patient on offense,” senior forward Dylan Huff said. “Our defense was better, too. I thought we got the stops when we needed to, and when we were patient we got our looks.”
Perhaps the unsung star of the game was junior point guard Colby Smith, who scored just six points but seemingly was around the ball all night as he contributed 12 rebounds, eight assists and five steals.
Four of Smith’s assists came directly after grabbing offensive rebounds, while two others came on inbounding passes and yet another came after a steal.
“He does all the dirty work,” Huff said. “He’s our ballhandler, he gets rebounds, he does everything.”
Smith and the rest of the Witches have one final goal this winter — to win their last game.
“We’ve got great seniors and a great team, and we want to make everything we can out of this season,” Huff said.
“We’re going to treat [Friday’s] game like a state championship and go out there and hopefully get the win.”
