The Gardiner girls had Saturday night and all of Sunday to enjoy the euphoria of their upset of top-seed Mt. Desert Island. On Monday, the Tigers were back to preparing for another opponent.
“We talked about that before practice (Monday),” Gardiner coach Mike Gray said. “We talked about, yes, we should be excited that we pulled off this win. But while there’s still no pressure on us, there’s a great opportunity in front of us.”
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Ninth-seeded Gardiner (9-11) looks to continue its run in the Eastern B semifinals against No. 4 Camden Hills (15-5) at 3:35 p.m. Wednesday at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor. In Wednesday’s other semifinal, No. 11 Hermon (10-10) faces No. 2 Presque Isle (17-2) at 2:05 p.m.
Camden Hills defeated Gardiner 52-48 in Gardiner just after Christmas. It was the only time the teams met during the regular season.
“It was kind of back-and-forth all game,” Gray said. “It’s a good matchup. Two evenly matched teams. The two differences in that game were Rachel Pease was in the mid-20s in rebounds. She was cleaning up. The other piece was we shot poorly from the line. They shot well from the line.”
Pease and Charlotte Messer both made first-team all-Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class B Coastal first team, while Maddie Bowman was on the second team. The Windjammers edged Oceanside 49-45 in the quarterfinals.
Gardiner’s loss to Camden was typical of this season for the Tigers. Incredibly, none of the Tigers’ 11 losses this season was by more than 10 points. If point guard Lauren Chadwick isn’t scoring, the Tigers have other options like Morgan Carver (24 points against MDI), Logan Granholm, Mary Toman and Savannah Vinton-Mullens. All four of those players hit big shots on Saturday, while Chadwick ran the offense expertly and the bench players also came up with important contributions.
Presque Isle has handled Hermon twice this season, winning 72-34 and 70-41 in a space of two weeks. Presque Isle’s only two losses this season came against MDI, and the Wildcats defeated Winslow, 50-33, in the quarterfinals.
Hermon is coming off a 42-30 victory over Medomak Valley in the quarterfinals. The Hawks have certainly improved over the winter. They defeated John Bapst in the preliminary round after losing to Bapst twice during the regular season, and scored a convincing late-season win over Old Town after losing to the same team earlier in the winter.
Matt DiFilippo — 861-9243
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