The top-seeded Ellsworth High School boys basketball team put on a defensive clinic in the first half of their 62-39 Class B North quarterfinal victory over ninth seed Winslow at the Cross Insurance Center.
The Eagles forced 16 turnovers with their aggressive zone trap and held Winslow scoreless for over eight minutes in building a cozy 35-7 halftime lead.
Senior guard Chance Mercier had 16 points and five steals in the first half as 16-3 Ellsworth advanced to Wednesday’s 11:30 a.m. semifinal against fourth seed Orono, also 16-3.
The teams split during the regular season.
“The game plan was to go double (double-team). Pressure their ball-handlers to try to speed them up to play our pace. And that’s what we did,” said Mercier, who didn’t score in the second half as the reserves saw a lot of playing time.
“The coaches are after us a lot in practice about playing defense really hard and with intensity and I feel that we came out with great intensity and made them turn over the ball,” added Mercier, the Big East’s leading scorer this season with his 23.4 points per game average.
He had six rebounds and four assists to go with his 16 points and five steals.
Ellsworth broke the game open with a 15-0 run spanning the first and second periods to build a 19-4 lead.
Mercier had three layups off his own steals during that stretch and he also had two assists, one on a dunk by junior guard Kyle Kenny and another on a looping inbounds pass from under the Winslow basket to Kenny.
Standout Winslow junior guard Braden Rodrigue ended the run with a pull-up jumper but Ellsworth answered with 14 unanswered points to sew up the win.
Senior guard Miles Palmer and Kenny each finished with eight points as 13 Eagles wound up in the scoring column. Junior forward Connor MacDonald produced six points.
The hard-working Rodrigue scored a game-high 20 points. He also had four rebounds for the 13-7 Black Raiders. Junior guard Brody Willette had eight points, all in the fourth quarter, and senior forward Matthew Reynolds wound up with six points and eight rebounds.
Another senior forward, Matthew Quirion tallied four points and eight rebounds.
