AUGUSTA — The momentum that Gray-New Gloucester earned in the second quarter Saturday didn’t last long into the third.
The ninth-ranked Patriots had rallied to get within three points at the break in their Western B quarterfinal against top-ranked Yarmouth. After working so hard to make a game of it just before halftime, they watched the Clippers run away it in the third.
Yarmouth scored 19 consecutive points, including five consecutive 3s that broke open the lead for good in a 79-48 win at the Portland Expo.
“Yarmouth started by hitting a couple of tough shots,” said Gray-NG coach Ryan Deschenes, whose team lost twice to Yarmouth in the regular season. “Then the momentum got going. Their pressure got going. They just kept doing what they do and it just snowballed.”
Yarmouth senior guard Adam LaBrie led the charge for the Clippers (16-3) he scored 22 of hits game-high 27 in that third quarter. That included four of his six 3’s and a three-point play. The Clippers finished with 14 3’s.
“I just wanted to come out and spark the team,” LaBrie said. “As a senior and as a captain, I really thought that’s what I needed to do.”
While Gray-NG (9-11) managed to keep pace with the top-seeded Clippers in the first half, the Patriots couldn’t answer the kind of offense Yarmouth produced in the third. Gray-NG didn’t score a field goal until James Magno had a three-point play with 1:20 left.
“Yarmouth just wants to go,” Deschenes said. “We want to go at times, but we talked about two paces — when to attack and when to take good shots. In the first half, we did a pretty good job going two speeds. In the second half, Yarmouth played their game and got us on our heels.”
Jordan Brown added 19 for Yarmouth while Musseit M’Bareck had 12 points and Cody Cook chipped in 11. The Patriots got 14 from Magno and 13 from Tyler St. Pierre.
“Adam just tried to take it on his shoulders,” Yarmouth coach Adam Smith said. “When you give the kids the freedom to play, they will do some incredible things. He just had an incredible third quarter.
LaBrie started the barrage with back-to-back 3’s about 30 seconds apart. That quickly turned a three-point lead into 38-29. After a Brown 3, LaBrie hit again. That was followed by another Brown trey and a basket in the post for a 49-29 lead. After a drive by Cook, the Patriots got a free throw by Magno. LaBrie then had a three-point play and another basket. After an M’Bareck steal, Gray-NG got a three-point play from Magno and a basket by St. Pierre. LaBrie answered that with a 3 and hit another basket to finish the quarter with a 63-37 lead.
“We knew we had to come out on fire,” LaBrie said. “We were all down on ourselves. That’s not how we usually play. We don’t usually turn the ball over like that. We got all scared of the other team. It just got into our heads a little bit.”
Yarmouth had opened an 11-4 lead in the first quarter and were up by as many as 17-8, but the Patriots were able to hang around. A 7-2 run to end the quarter had Gray-NG within 19-15. Zach Haskell and David Chanlatte each hit free throws and St. Pierre finished the quarter with a 3.
“We felt like Yarmouth made two little runs in the first half,” Deschenes said. “We responded great and got it to where we were at the half. We thought we were in good position and had to keep doing what we were doing.”
The Clippers bumped the lead back to 25-17 with a Brown 3 early in the second, part of an 8-0 run. A 3 by Andreas Kariotis and a basket by Magno got the deficit down to 27-23. The Clippers were back up by seven before a rebound by Kyle Keenan and free throws by St. Pierre had the Patriots within 32-29.
“I settled them down in the locker room,” Smith said. “We didn’t try to fire them up. We tried to settle them down and just get us back to playing hard for 16 minutes.”
kmills@sunjournal.com
Send questions/comments to the editors.
