BANGOR — The Maine Central Institute girls basketball team had one rally, then it had another. But the Huskies were unable to mount a third comeback in a Class B North quarterfinal game against Presque Isle, which hung on for a 58-53 overtime win at the Cross Center.
MCI led 46-43 with 21 seconds left in the fourth quarter, when Presque Isle’s Emily Wheaton hit the game-tying 3-pointer.
“Savannah (Rodriguez) set a good screen for me and my adrenaline got me going. It felt good,” said Wheaton, who scored a game-high 36 points.
In overtime, Wheaton went 7 for 7 at the line to help the Wildcats pull ahead and stay there. With the win, No. 5 Presque Isle (14-5) advanced to play either No. 1 Hermon or No. 8 Caribou in the semifinals. No. 4 MCI ends the season at 14-5.
“We’ve done that all year. We’ve had those close games all year. Most of the time, we’re able to pull them out. Tonight, we just weren’t able to. We had a five-point lead very late, but Emily just took over and made some key threes,” MCI coach Jordan Larlee said. “We were there, but when you’re making them from four or five feet behind the arc like she was, it just makes it difficult.”
RALLY ONE: Down 22-16 at the half, the Huskies scored the first seven points of the third quarter to take a 23-22 lead on an April McAlpine (14 points) three.
“We’d been down six, eight, 14 before, and we’d just come back and handled business. It wasn’t anything new. We just said we needed to relax a little bit more on offense, be a little bit more patient. Defensively, we were there,” Larlee said.
The Huskies needed to be more patient on offense. In the first half, they often settled for the first shot after one pass. In the second half, MCI worked the ball inside more, and that opened up better shots.
“Once we started to get the ball to the inside, then you get the kick out, reverse, and use both sides of the floor. That’s when it opened it up for us,” Larlee said.
The Wildcats answered MCI’s third quarter rally with a 12-5 run to take a 34-28 lead into the fourth quarter.
RALLY TWO: MCI opened the fourth quarter with an 11-0 run, and a Claudia Alvarez basket with 3:54 left gave the Huskies a 39-34 lead. The Wildcats didn’t panic, Wheaton said.
“(It was) Just keeping our composure and energy high during the game,” Wheaton said.
MCI led 43-41 with 1:20 to play when leading scorer McAlpine fouled out on a charge. Sydney Morton hit a pair of free throws with 57 seconds left to give the Huskies a 45-41 lead, and Wheaton hit a layup six seconds later to cut the MCI lead to two points. After Morton made one foul shot with 32.5 seconds left, MCI had a three-point lead, setting up Wheaton’s game-tying shot.
In overtime, Wheaton converted an old-fashioned three-point play to give the Wildcats the lead for good, 51-48, with 2:14 to go. From there, Presque Isle made 7 of 8 foul shots to clinch the game.
Rodriguez had eight points and 15 rebounds for the Wildcats. Christa Carr had 14 boards for the Huskies, while Sydney Farrar added 11 points.
Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242
tlazarczyk@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @TLazarczykMTM
Send questions/comments to the editors.
