With the high school tournament not far away, this weekend’s schedule of boys basketball games is packed with some heavy hitting contests involving Bangor-area teams.
Both the Class A and B North regions will see top-three matchups, with No. 2 Brewer High School traveling to No. 3 Hampden Academy on Friday night in Class A. Class B action will include another Friday night showdown between No. 2 Ellsworth and No. 3 Orono.
Caribou sits at the top of Class B North and will travel south on Saturday for its second game against sixth ranked Old Town. Bangor Christian Academy will head to Machias for a second meeting between two of the top Class C and D North teams.
Brewer at Hampden, Friday
The 13-2 Brewer Witches will be looking to flip the script on the 11-4 Hampden Academy Broncos, after Hampden notched a six-point victory when the teams first met earlier this month.
Brewer coach Carl Parker said a key for his team will be “playing better defense than we did the first game,” which was the Witches’ first loss of the season.
“Obviosuly, the key will be for us to do a better job at eliminating some of the easy baskets that they got,” Parker said. “I think we’ve got to get out and run a little bit more than we did the last game. And if we do those things and play solid defense — the defense we played on Tuesday [against Gardiner], not the defense we played the first time we played against [Hampden] — I think we’ve got a real good chance.”
Brewer beat Gardiner 57-45 in its most recent game Tuesday. Hampden is coming off a close loss on Tuesday to Camden Hills, and defense is likely to be a focus for the Broncos as well.
“Our offense looked better tonight, which was good, but our defense let us down for the first time really all season,” Hampden coach Russ Bartlett said after the Tuesday night game. “So we just have to get back to working hard tomorrow and hopefully getting ready for Friday night.”
Friday’s game is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at Hampden Academy.
Orono at Ellsworth, Friday
The 11-4 Orono Red Riots will head to Ellsworth Friday for a 7 p.m. rematch against the 13-2 Eagles. The reigning Class B champion Orono squad fell by ten points to Ellsworth in that first game. Ellsworth and Orono sit at second and third in Class B North, behind first place Caribou at 15-1.
Caribou at Old Town, Saturday
When the Caribou Vikings and Old Town Coyotes met in December, the Caribou squad emerged with a 34-point victory at home. But Vikings coach Kyle Corrigan said that final margin doesn’t reflect a game that was actually much closer.
“The score is not indicative of how that game went at home. I think it was a 14-point game with 5 minutes to go, and we hit this 15-, 16-0 run in like a minute and 10 seconds,” Corrigan said. “It was the wildest minute and ten seconds. So the score doesn’t indicate how that game went, it was much closer than that finished out.”
Corrigan expects a tough matchup on Saturday afternoon against an Old Town team with good size, highlighting Coyote senior power forward Emmitt Byther, who he called “one of the best players in Class B.”
“And he’s one of the best bigs in the state, period,” Corrigan added.
“I think Old Town has come a long way since the beginning of the season,” Corrigan said. “That’s a credit to them, their work ethic, and coach Libby at getting them ready for the end of the season like he has.”
Getting off to a good start will be key for the Vikings, according to Corrigan. The game will be played at 3:30 p.m. in Old Town.
“The guys all share the ball really well. They don’t care who scores. It’s just that we score and that we get stops collectively,” he said. “It’s a really fun group.”
Bangor Christian at Machias, Friday
At 13-2 as of Thursday afternoon, Machias Memorial was in fourth in Class C North with another game to play Thursday night against Woodland. And on Friday, the Bulldogs will host the 12-4 Patriots of Bangor Christian School, who are currently third in Class D after winning the state title last year.
Machias coach Chad Fitzsimmons said that guarding Bangor Christian sophomore Rajon Reed will be a key part of the game.
“He’s a real solid player. He causes a lot of concerns defensively with his quickness and his length,” Fitzsimmons said. “He’s also a very good defender.”
Fitzsimmons expects Reed to guard his son, junior guard Mickey Fitzsimmons, who is “really like a second coach on the floor.”
Along with that matchup, Fitzsimmons expects there to be an important head-to-head battle down low between Bangor Christian’s Jessie Booker and Machias’s Kaiyden Carter.”
“Everyone knows him for his dunks and stuff, but he blocks shots. He’s a good defender,” the Machias coach said of Carter.
“When he’s on the floor, he’s as good of a big man in Class C as there is,” Fitzsimmons said.
The Machias team has depended on a well-rounded effort across the board, with Fitzsimmons also pointing to three point shooting from senior forward Hayden Blake, good play on the post from junior center Landon Barrett and “really solid” defense from junior guard Liam O’Connor.
“It’s always going to be tough against Bangor Christian and Rajon, and they’re a well coached team,” Fitzsimmons said. “We’re looking to come out and keep our kind of streak going the last couple of games, keep playing well, and we’ll see. It could go either way. It really could.”
