Jordan Grant of Gray-New Gloucester drives to the basket despite the triple-team defense of Freeport’s Hannah Spaulding, left, Caroline Smith and Mason Baker-Schlendering during the B South final Saturday at the Cross Insurance Arena. (Portland Press Hearald photo by Derek Davis)
PORTLAND — The Class B South tournament archives showed that Saturday’s regional final between No. 1 Gray-New Gloucester and No. 3 Freeport was a matchup of recent tournament mainstays.
Freeport was playing in its second consecutive B South final, while Gray-New Gloucester was playing in its third in four years, but its first after being knocked out of last year’s semifinal by eventual champion Lake Region.
Only a few minutes into the Western Maine Conference rivals’ first-ever meeting in the regional final, it was clear one team still played like the veteran tournament team.
The Patriots, who had everyone back from last year, were the aggressors, while the Falcons, who had graduated six of their top seven players from last year and also had a new coach, seemed to be waiting for a green flag or a gate to open.
Freeport didn’t score a single field goal in the entire first quarter. Gray-New Gloucester ran off the first 11 points and found itself sitting atop a 17-2 lead after the first eight minutes.
“We knew we needed to come out strong,” Gray-New Gloucester junior Eliza Hotham said. “In the past, our first quarters haven’t been very good, so we knew that we needed to come out in the first and just give it to them.”
“(Tournament experience) helps a lot. It calms the nerves a little bit,” Hotham said. “All of us, except for the two freshmen, have been here before, so we have had that experience. We just felt more comfortable, I think.”
“I think that it definitely helped with the confidence piece, and the nerves, too, making sure that we weren’t too nervous,” said the most experienced of the Patriots, senior guard Bri Jordan, who will be playing in her third state championship game next Saturday against Mount Desert Island.
The Patriots had beaten the Falcons by margins of 29 and 33 points during the regular season, so a 15-point deficit so soon wasn’t entirely unexpected. But Gray-New Gloucester coach Mike Andreasen sensed something might be amiss in the third matchup.
“Our first two matches we had with them, the first quarters were three-point games, and it was in the second, third and fourth quarters were what kind of elongated the game. Today was the exact opposite,” he said. “(Freeport) really showed a lot of fight to them. For a bunch of underclassmen, I think that tells you a lot about Freeport.”
In that sense, Andreasen saw a lot of last year’s Patriots in this year’s Falcons.
“They had no seniors. They missed some shots in the first quarter that … they were nerve shots,” he said. “Once they settled down, it was a lot easier on them.”
“But I do think the fact that our kids have been in this game — for the seniors this is the third (Southern) Maine final that they’ve been in — that was good for them,” he added.
Andreasen added that the Patriots did help give the Falcons some hope when the latter ended the first half with a 7-0 run that turned a 22-4 score into a much less daunting 22-11 deficit.
Seth Farrington, Freeport’s first-year coach, had the top returning player from last year, junior guard Caroline Smith, to thank for that.
Smith (24 points) was the Falcons’ offense, and she almost single-handedly willed them back into the game. She chipped away at the deficit, getting her team as close as 36-30 with a beautiful pull-up 10-footer at the baseline with 3:39 to go.
The tension that had been building with each point taken off of Gray-New Gloucester’s lead seemed ready to boil over and burn the Patriots. Luckily for them, Hotham wasn’t feeling any pressure when Jordan Grant, triple-teamed in the post, kicked it out to her for an open 3-pointer. Hotham coolly knocked it down to make it a nine-point lead with three minutes left and essentially seal the win.
“That was key,” Jordan said. “She does a very good job of knowing when to score at the right time. I think that really got our momentum back.”
“Our coaches have been talking about being ready to catch and shoot on those possessions,” Hotham said. “I was out on the perimeter hoping to get the ball, so when I got it, my feet were ready and I was able to take that shot.”
That Hotham hit the key shot was indicative of the difference between this year’s Patriots and last year’s Patriots, according to Farrington.
“Last year, it was the Bri Jordan/Jordan Grant show,” Farrington said. “How much did Holcomb, (Mikaela) Ryan, these other kids contribute? How much have they progressed in one year in time? They’re a well-rounded team.”
This year’s Gray-New Gloucester team has already progressed two games more than last year’s team. Next Saturday, it will try to match what it did two years ago, when it became the first GNG team to win a state title.
“Collectively,” Jordan said, “if we all just keep our composure and keep our confidence, we will be OK as long as we work hard on every possession.”
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