AUGUSTA — Dirigo boys’ basketball has a new scoring king and is back in an old, familiar place.
The No. 2 Cougars avenged a 2013 Class C West tournament loss to the No. 3 Waynflete Flyers with an emphatic, 58-36 semifinal win Friday night at Augusta Civic Center, cruising into its seventh regional final in nine years.
Riley Robinson was sensational for Dirigo (18-2) with 26 points, eight rebounds and eight assists. He also became the Cougars’ all-time leading scorer with more than 1,300 points, leapfrogging the top previous boy and girl, European pro and former Notre Dame standout Tom Knight and Bowdoin grad Alexa Kaubris.
“I have all the respect in the world for Tom,” Robinson, a junior guard, said. “We play a lot of one-on-one in the summer. He usually beats me, but it makes me better.”
Clay Swett chipped in nine points, Kaine Hutchins eight, and Gavin Arsenault seven.
Dirigo never trailed on its way to an 8:45 p.m. Saturday championship date with the Winthrop-Maranacook winner. The Cougars contained the defending regional champion Flyers (16-2) to 29 percent shooting.
“We’ve been emphasizing defense all year,” Dirigo coach Travis Magnusson said. “Last year in this round (against Maranacook) we gave up 87 points, and tonight we gave up 36, so I think we fixed that.”
The Cougars took an aggressive, face-guarding stance against Flyers’ guards Milo Belleau and Harry Baker-Connick. Waynflete only turned it over seven times, but the Flyers were forced to dump the ball inside, where the Cougars had a decided advantage with tournament veterans Swett and Hutchins.
Yai Deng led Waynflete with 10 points. Dirigo limited Baker-Connick and Belleau to eight apiece.
“I give them credit. They took us out of what we like to do, and you have to tip your cap to them,” Waynflete coach Rich Henry said. “We’ve seen a lot of face-guarding and box-and-ones and Milo and stuff like that, and you would think with the space on this floor that we would have been able to do a little better. But that’s what happens when you’re playing with 14, 15 and 16-year-old boys.”
Dirigo hit seven of its first nine shots, four from 3-point range, to open an 18-6 lead.
The Cougars scored seven in succession to get it started. Robinson drove for two on the opening possession and Swett scored down low before Robinson found Tyler Frost for a 3-pointer.
“Riley’s such a great player, but he’s more for the team than himself,” Frost said. “He doesn’t just take shots like some other good players do. He’s going to dish to his team.”
Baker-Connick and Pace Hutchinson broke the ice for Waynflete, but Dirigo retorted with another Robinson hoop and a Kaine Hutchins trey.
Robinson and Hutchins each rained down another from beyond the arc to cap the quarter for the Cougars, who held the Flyers to 4-for-15 shooting in the period.
“We had our breakfast today, and the tradition is that the kids stand up and say something,” Magnusson said. “(Robinson) just said, ‘I’ve never been past this round.’ He was on a mission, but it starts with our seniors. We got great leadership from Tyler Frost and Kaine Hutchins.”
Waynflete was able to basket-swap with Dirigo for most of the second stanza. Arsenault restored a double-digit advantage with a conventional 3-point play early in the period, but Deng delivered back-to-back baskets to get it back within seven at 27-20.
Robinson’s reply: A 3-point play. He had 13 at the half. Dirigo led 32-24 at that checkpoint, and Waynflete never nudged closer than eight in the second half.
“I’ve lost this game the past two years. It sucks,” Robinson said. “I didn’t want to lose again.”
Frost, a four-year contributor content to chalk up more floor burns than points, fed two of Robinson’s three baskets in the third period. Robinson also went over the top to Arsenault for an uncontested layup, and Swett, left unchecked along the baseline, found nothing but net from 12 feet.
Dirigo held Waynflete to a single field goal by Belleau for much of the quarter.
Consecutive baskets by Deng and Willy Burdick made it 42-32 at the end of three. Baker-Connick’s two buckets were the only additional offense in the fourth, however, and the Cougars piled it on.
“Sometimes the excitement and anxiety get to you, and that’s what happened to us,” Henry said.
Robinson dished to Swett, Hutchins and Joe Casey for fourth-quarter hoops. He also went 7-for-8 from the line.
The Cougars collected four consecutive Western championships from 2009 to 2012. They have won 13 games without a defeat since losing to Winthrop on the ACC floor Dec. 27.
“We came out flat (in the quarterfinal) against OOB, and we know if we want to have any chance at all to play in the state game, we can’t do that again,” Frost said. “The energy was unreal tonight.”
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