BANGOR, Maine — The Oceanside High School girls basketball team from the Rockland area stormed to a 15-point halftime lead thanks to five 3-pointers and hung on to defeat Old Town 33-25 and earn the Class B state championship at the Cross Insurance Center Friday night.
The victory capped a perfect 22-0 season for the B South champion Mariners, who won their second state title in three years.
Old Town, the B North champions, finished with a 19-3 record. The Coyotes were without second-leading scorer Taylor Loring, who missed the game due to a knee injury sustained in the regional semifinals.
Oceanside All-State junior center Bailey Breen, who brought a 30 points-per-game average into the contest and whose lowest point total in a game this season was 14, was held to only four points by senior forward Saige Evans and her teammates.
But freshman guard Grace Mackie came off the bench to hit all three of her 3-point attempts in the first half and sophomore guard Renee Ripley nailed both of hers.
Oceanside was 5-for-6 from long range with Breen being the only one who missed in the first half.
Meanwhile, the much taller Mariners used their height and sound defensive positioning to limit the Coyotes to just three field goals on 22 attempts in the first half as Oceanside took a 25-10 lead into the intermission.
But the Mariners made just one field goal in the second half, a 3-pointer by Ripley midway through the third period, and the hard-working and gritty Coyotes fought their way back into it by outscoring Oceanside 10-3 in the third period.
Senior guard Makayla Emerson scored the first six points of the second half for Old Town and, after Ripley hit her three from the left side off a Breen pass, Karina Dumond’s runner and a Saige Evans basket off an Alexis Degrasse pass cut the lead to 28-20.
Oceanside took just two shots from the floor in the fourth quarter as Mariners coach Matt Breen decided to spread the court and hold the ball, forcing Old Town to foul.
But his Mariners missed their first five free throws after Evans converted her own offensive rebounds to cut the lead to six.
Junior guard Aubri Hoose finally broke the free throw drought by hitting one with 2:07 left and added two more 20 seconds later.
But Emerson hit a long three for Old Town to trim the lead to 31-25 with 1:30 remaining.
Old Town had a chance to get closer with a layup off a steal but failed to convert and Breen sewed up the victory with two foul shots with 32.2 seconds remaining.
Ripley and Mackie finished with nine points apiece for Oceanside. Ripley grabbed five rebounds and did a good job defending Evans.
Breen may have scored only four points as Evans and her teammates swarmed her effectively in the paint, but she was still an important contributor with 11 rebounds, five assists and three blocked shots.
Hoose scored seven points; senior center Sophia Daggett contributed four points and six rebounds, and senior forward Caitlyn Lamb grabbed five rebounds.
Emerson paced the Coyotes with a game-high 14 points, seven rebounds and three steals. Evans wound up with nine points and eight rebounds. Senior forward Danica Brown and senior guard Alexis Degrasse combined to corral seven rebounds.
“It was a great team effort,” said Oceanside coach Breen. “We knew our role players were going to have to step up and make a difference.”
Bailey Breen said Old Town did a good job defending her and “taking away what we wanted to do.
“But, with a team like this, we are capable of finding the mismatches and finding what we need to do to exploit it and we had some players step up and make some big time shots,” said Bailey Breen who praised Mackie and Ripley for their first-half threes.
“Those were big-time shots from some really young kids,” added Breen.
Mackie said she got into a rhythm in the first half.
“When I hit one, I just keep hitting them and it just comes natural,” said Mackie, who brought a 3.6 points per game average into the game.
“I’ve definitely worked on my game and it’s just great that it happened in this game,” said Mackie, who noted that the defensive coverage on Breen “leaves a lot of us open.”
“She can shoot. That’s why I put her in, to spread the floor,” said Coach Breen. “She brings a different dimension. She kind of limits what they can do, doubling in the paint. They were going to make her shoot and beat us and she did a good job in the first half.
“We didn’t execute in the second half. Old Town outworked us,” said Breen. “They’re a good team. You knew they were going to make a run.”
“They did what I would have done. They locked in on Bailey. We locked in on Saige. We were going to make someone else make the plays,” Breen added. “It was a struggle both ways offensively. We hit some shots in the first half.”
Old Town coach Heather Richards said “we knew we were going to pack it in and have them beat us from the outside and that’s what they did, a credit to them.”
“We got outrebounded (31-21) and got in a hole in the first half we couldn’t get out of,” Richards added. “But I’m very proud of the girls.”