NAPLES — Lake Region couldn’t have asked for more chances to extend the defense of its Class B state title than it got in the final seconds of Tuesday night’s South boys’ preliminary round game. But, it’s Gray-New Gloucester that kept its championship dream alive.
Trailing by three, the eighth-seeded Lakers missed three 3-pointers in the final 10 seconds, and the ninth-seeded Patriots held on for a 57-54 win.
Gray-New Gloucester (10-9) advances to face top-seeded Yarmouth (16-2) in the quarterfinals at 4 p.m. Saturday at the Portland Expo. Lake Region finishes at 9-10.
Josiah Rottari knocked down two clutch free throws to give the Patriots the three-point lead with 17.6 seconds left. Lake Region came out of a timeout and got the ball in the hands of top scorer Tyler Walker (16 points, 10 rebounds), who missed his 3-point attempt to tie it. Tristen Chaine collected the long rebound for the Lakers and took his turn to tie it but missed.
Jake Kackmeister came down with the rebound for the Patriots but was called for traveling, giving the Lakers the ball under their own basket with 2.8 seconds to go. Without a timeout, they set up another 3-point attempt by Walker at the buzzer, but it only drew iron.
“We wanted to switch everything (defensively), make sure we defend the 3-point line, and if we gave up penetration, not to help,” Patriots coach Ryan Deschenes said of the final sequence. “We didn’t want to concede a two there, but at the same time, we couldn’t help off of the 3-point shooters. They got three looks, but they were three tough looks.”
Four Patriots scored in double figures — Hunter Colby 13, Rottair 12, John Martin 11 and John Henry Villanueva 11. Most of those points came in bunches in a game that saw 19 lead changes.
“We did a really good job of finding the mismatches,” Deschenes said. “It seemed like Hunter Colby had a stretch, then Kack had a stretch. Obviously, Martin had his stretch and John Villanueva and Josiah Rottari had their stretches.”
“It was just a great team win, first of all,” Villanueva said. “We had guys scoring all around, basically. We had the post going, which led to open 3s. People were driving to the hoop. Our defense really helped out, too.”
Villanueva stepped up first, scoring seven points in the first quarter to keep the Patriots within one at the end of the period.
The teams continued to trade leads in the second quarter. This time, it was Colby (eight points) who produced in the paint as the Patriots took a 32-30 lead into halftime.
“What hurt us is they got several offensive rebounds, their second-chance points and their points in the paint,” Lakers coach John Mayo said. “That was the big difference. I thought we did a pretty good job against their 3-point shooters. They had seven last time against us (in a 53-48 Patriots win on Jan. 17). That’s what we were focused on. They’re multi-faceted, so they went inside and that hurt us.”
“We’re always expecting big things out of the paint,” Villanueva said. “Our big guys work hard down there. We try to feed them and get them going every game. If they do get going, people start to double-team them and that leads to our 3-pointers.”
The perimeter opened up in the third quarter for Martin and Rottari, who combined for three 3-pointers during a 13-2 run. Martin’s first trey put the Patriots in front to stay with 5:06 left in the third. His second gave the Patriots the largest lead for either team at 45-39.
The Lakers closed the gap to one by the end of the quarter when Mark Mayo beat the buzzer with a putback from difficult angle virtually behind the backboard.
The Patriots’ lead stayed on that one-to-three see-saw throughout the fourth.
True Meyers made the Lakers’ last field goal of the game with 2:41 left to pull them within 53-52.
After being fouled attempting a 3-pointer, Rottari sank two of three from the line to make it a three-point game again with 2:06 left. Lake Region, which shot 2-for-15 in the quarter, had a couple of possessions to tie it or pull within one, but couldn’t find the range.
Mark Mayo finally hit a pair of free throws to make it 55-54 with 58 seconds to go and the Lakers had their first chance to take the lead after Kackmeister missed inside with 48 seconds left, but that was only the start of their frustrating finish.
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