RICHMOND — Calob Densmore’s steal and dunk added appropriate punctuation to Richmond’s dominant third quarter Wednesday night, but it was Kenny Bing’s buzzer-beating 3-pointer that put the exclamation point on the period.
Bing finished with 29 points while Densmore poured in 19 more, the duo of 6-footers leading the No. 5 Bobcats to a runaway 70-55 win over No. 12 St. Dominic Academy in a Class C South boys basketball preliminary round game. Richmond (12-7) will meet No. 4 North Yarmouth Academy in Monday’s regional quarterfinals.
The Bobcats opened up a four-point game at halftime with a 15-5 run to begin the third quarter.
“We had a good talk in the locker room at halftime,” Densmore said. “We knew we could play better. We made that clear.”
Where St. Dom’s (8-11) had been hot from long distance in the first half to keep things close, Richmond’s second-half defense sealed off the perimeter and left the Saints attempting too many poor-percentage shots in their first postseason appearance since 2015.
“We had some looks that didn’t go, and we settled for some shots we probably shouldn’t have taken,” St. Dom’s coach Joshua LaPrell said. “Maybe we could have looked to go to the basket more. It’s hard — threes are worth more than twos, and if you make enough of them you can get back into it faster, but sometimes we settle and don’t move the ball enough to get easier shots for ourselves.”
It was a 15-point Richmond lead with a hair over a minute to play in the third when Densmore picked off a high pass just above mid-court, and the 6-foot-3 center raced the rest of the way to slam it home for a 48-31 Bobcat advantage.
The gym exploded with noise, but the best was still yet to come before the period was over.
A 3-pointer with five seconds remaining from St. Dom’s Noah Cyr cut into some of the life, but Bing pushed it back up the court and launched a deep three that beat the buzzer.
“I honestly had no idea if it was going in,” Bing said. “It’s kind of 50-50 with those. But I’m happy it did. That third quarter was the biggest of the night. When we went in the locker room, it was low energy — but you could see the fight was still there. When we came out, we wanted to make sure that fight was emphasized on the court.
“That’s what we went out and did.”
The Saints connected on 10 3-pointers to Richmond’s five, but there were too few follow-ups underneath for the visitors. Bing grabbed a team-high 15 rebounds for Richmond, while Densmore hauled down 11 boards.
As a team, Richmond out-rebounded St. Dom’s 38-25 for the night.
Richmond’s Kenny Bing, left, tries to shrug off St. Dominic defender Will LaFlamme during a Class C prelim game Wednesday in Richmond. Kennebec Journal photo by Andy Molloy
Winning so many board battles did wonders for the Bobcat offens. It allowed Richmond to stretch its legs beyond its half-court offense and find easier opportunities in transition against the Saints’ zone defense.
“If we have the ball, they can’t score,” Densmore said.
From there Densmore, Bing and others feasted.
“We get stagnant offensively,” Richmond coach Phil Houdlette said. “We wanted to push the basketball a little bit more, make them run a little bit. Coach (Paul) Lancaster and I talked about if we could rebound the basketball, every time push it up the floor to see if we could get something going. We got a lot of transition baskets, and I think that was the difference (in the second half).”
Ben Gardner added 10 points in the win.
Gabe Carey led St. Dom’s with 16 points, while Marshal Adams and Eli St. Laurent added 14 and 12, respectively.
“I thought we had a good mindset and I thought we were prepared,” LaPrell said “But we were proud to just get here. They won two games in the last four years, so it was a very good season. They worked hard.”
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