Fort Fairfield charged back in the second half and slayed the Dragons of Woodland with a late 52-50 victory to advance in the C North boys playoffs on Tuesday at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor.
The No. 4 Tigers (15-5) will take on the winner of No. 1 Calais (15-3) and No. 8 Penobscot Valley (11-8) in the semifinals on Friday at 8:30 p.m.
“This one feels pretty good,” Fort Fairfield coach Vaughn McLaughlin said. “This is a great group of guys and we knew this would be a battle. I am really proud of them.”
Woodland (13-7) earned a 10-4 lead at the start of the game and took a 14-10 advantage into the second quarter. Brogan Brown scored all seven of his first half points in the first quarter for the Dragons.
Fort Fairfield battled back in the second, pulling within 18-17 midway through the period on a floater from Micah Daigle, who scored six points in the half. Ethan Willard paced the Tigers in the first half with 10 points.
Daigle led the way with 20 points. Woodland’s Ethan Monk scored 16 points to pace the Dragons.
Monk scored five quick points to help the Dragons put some space between them and their opponent to start the third quarter. Monk scored 10 points in the third and the Dragons took a 42-35 lead into the final frame.
The start of the fourth quarter was a back-and-forth battle on the Cross Insurance Center floor with both teams trading basket after basket. With 4:26 to play in the game, six total players from both teams had scored a basket and Woodland hung onto a 48-43 advantage.
With two minutes left, Daigle answered a Woodland basket quickly with a layup of his own to pull the Tigers within 50-48.
Cayden Ala made a free throw with 1:10 left to cut the deficit to 50-49. With 25 seconds left, Daigle drove to the right side and put a floater from 6 feet out and scored, giving the Tigers a 51-50 lead, its first of the game.
“The biggest thing down the stretch was their offensive rebounding,” Woodland coach Ryan Lincoln said. “It’s hard when you play gimmick defenses that you get bodies on everyone. … It’s really weird, it comes down to a single bounce. It came off the rim with six seconds left and we didn’t have a time out. They worked harder for it and they made us pay.”
With 20 seconds left, Monk got the ball in the front court and drove into the lane and missed a shot. Reece Sabattus grabbed an offensive rebound and put another shot up that rimmed out and was rebounded by Daigle, who was then fouled with 0.5 seconds left.
“That’s the only time we took the lead was at the end and that’s the best time,” McLaughlin said.
Daigle made one free throw and clinched the victory for the Dragons.
