The top-seeded Calais High School boys basketball team scored the game’s first 25 points en route to a 57-33 Class C North quarterfinal win over undermanned eighth seed Piscataquis Community High School of Guilford at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor Tuesday night.
The 16-3 Blue Devils, winners of seven in a row, will now take on fifth seed Hodgdon, 18-3, in Thursday’s 3:30 p.m. semifinal.
PCHS, which had just seven players, wound up 12-8.
“We’ve had one theme from day one: it’s defense and pace. We want to play fast and play (good defense). We want to get a finger on the ball, force a turnover and find a teammate,” said Calais coach Dean Preston who mixes his up-tempo defenses between a half-court trap and full-court press, primarily.
“Defense and rebounding have been our MO the entire year and I thought we executed that,” said Calais junior Kaeson Dana, who was the team’s co-leading scorer with senior Jeremy Turner.
Both had 14 points. Senior Kaden Small had 13 points.
Dana said their balanced scoring has been instrumental in their success.
“That’s the hardest thing about (playing) us. We have six, seven guys who can put 15 up on you,” said Dana.
PCHS coach Brian Gaw called Calais a “very good team.
“They’re athletic, they’re balanced. They have a number of kids who can score. They have some outside shooting and an inside game,” said Gaw.
PCHS missed its first 14 shots and didn’t score until there was 5:11 left in the first half.
Noah Kain’s 3-pointer represented the Pirates’ first points and the first of their eight 3-pointers.
They launched 32 3-pointers.
“That has been the cornerstone of our offense. You live by the three and die by them. They took us out of our game. They made us shoot from uncomfortable spots,” Gaw said.
Dana had nine rebounds to go with his 14 points and Turner and Small each had seven boards.
Junior Oliver Clark and sophomore Philip Bassett each produced six points off the bench.
Sophomore point guard Brady Gaw poured in a game-high 17 points for PCHS including four 3-pointers. He also hauled down nine rebounds. Senior Scott Chadbourne contributed 11 points including three 3-pointers. He also corralled nine rebounds. Sophomore Noah Kain had five points and four rebounds.
