BANGOR — Come tournament time, you can’t say enough about senior experience and leadership.

Winslow High School boys basketball coach Jared Browne can’t anyway.

After watching Oceanside rally from a 14-point deficit in the fourth quarter to tie his Black Raiders, Browne watched his seniors step up in the final minute. The result was a 46-40 Winslow win.

“Our seniors, down the stretch, really stepped up,” Browne said.

No. 2 Winslow (17-2) will face No. 3 Old Town (18-1) on Wednesday at 7:05 p.m. at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor. No. 7 Oceanside ends the season 13-7.

“We had to get our mind back on things and keep the hype going, and just stop them on defense. That’s what we did, eventually,” Winslow senior guard Colby Robertson said.

Trailing 37-23 in the first minute of the fourth quarter, the Mariners went on a 14-0 run, tying the game on a pair of Nate Raye free throws with 4:01 to play. Winslow held a 20-18 lead at the half, but the Black Raiders extended their lead in the third on the hot hand of Robertson, who hit three 3-pointers in the third to score nine of his game-high 20 points.

“In the third quarter, it just looked like we didn’t care. We were just kind of going through the motions. We weren’t talking on screens. We let the Robertson kid get open and bomb some threes,” Oceanside coach Matt Breen said. “In between the quarters, we talked about playing with a little bit of pride and fire and making a run. We knocked down some shots, we just couldn’t get over the hump.”

“It looked bad when it was happening, but they just hit shots. They came out of the flow of their offense, and we contested them, they just made shots. They’re a good shooting team,” Browne added.

With the game tied at 40 with under a minute to play, Winslow senior guard Josh Kervin put the Black Raiders ahead for good, driving the lane for a layup with 46 seconds to play. After an Oceanside miss, Kervin made a pair of foul shots with 19.6 shots when Nick Mazurek was called for an intentional foul.

“That’s senior leadership. That’s three years on the team. (Kervin) took it into his hands to do that, and hit some clutch free throws after that,” Browne said. “Our seniors really bailed us out when we were kind of struggling.”

Trenton Bouchard and Justin Martin each hit a free throw in the final 20 seconds to ice the win for Winslow. The makes at the line were the exception for the Black Raiders on Saturday morning. Winslow made just 12 of 27 foul shots.

“I was concerned, but we took a lot of free throws. We went to the line 27 times. We didn’t make that many, but we kept going to it, and that was a big thing,” Browne said.

What wasn’t a concern was Winslow’s defense. The Black Raiders did an excellent job on the Mariners’ guard, with Kervin, Bouchard and Robertson badgering Oceanside point guard Keenan Hendricks the entire game. Inside, Bobby Chenard did a nice job defending the Mariners’ pick and roll.

“Josh Kervin and Trenton Bouchard did a great job on Hendricks. They didn’t let him run the offense. They forced him into some tough looks, didn’t let him get to the rim. Our whole defense was outstanding,” Browne said.

Added Breen: “They did a good job doubling Keenan coming off all the ball screens. We weren’t cutting hard enough on the weak side. We kind of left him hung out to try a little bit.”

Winslow played most of the second quarter without Martin, the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class B Player of the Year and the team’s leading scorer. The 6-foot-6 senior played just 20 seconds in the second after picking up his third foul, but Robertson stepped up offensively, scoring eight points in the quarter as the Black Raiders turned an 11-8 deficit after one quarter into a 20-18 halftime lead.

“Not just me, I think the whole team had to step up a lot. When (Martin) goes down, it’s another step we have to go over,” Robertson said.

Added Browne: “Defensively was the bigger thing, losing the matchup on Mazurek. We put Bobby Chenard and Justin Burgher on him, and those guys did a great job. … We got out a ran in transition a lot more in the second. Colby Robertson carried the team in the second quarter. Again, another senior.”

Martin had 11 points, 15 rebounds and two blocks for Winslow. Hendricks led Oceanside with 10 points, while Nate Raye came off the bench to score nine.

Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242

tlazarczyk@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @TLazarczykMTM

Related Stories