BANGOR — It took a record-setting player from an even more historic team to finally derail Rangeley’s remarkable season.

Washburn became the first girls team to win five state championships in a row Saturday. Its star guard, Mackenzie Worcester, set a Class D final record with 37 points. The Lakers will always be on the other side of those historic marks, but they left the Cross Insurance Center on Saturday with no regrets.

Additional Images

Washburn District High School’s Mackenzie Worcester, 14, celebrates with the net after defeating Rangeley Lakes High School 60-54 in the Maine Principal’s Association Class D championship basketball game at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor on Saturday. Staff photo by Michael G. Seamans

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• Record-setting performances by Worcester, Washburn end Rangeley’s title hopes

“Great job by Washburn,” Rangeley coach Heidi Deery said. “It took (Worcester) 37 points to beat us. I don’t know if there’s any shame in that.”

Perhaps if they could change anything, it might be to get off to a better start and maybe build a lead before Worcester started heating up. Senior forward Taylor Esty said the Lakers might have gotten a little too caught up in the magnitude of the moment after the opening tap.

“I think we were… kind of a little bit shocked,” Esty said. “We practiced here Tuesday, and we had a good practice. I guess just coming back here with so many fans and knowing it’s Washburn, and we didn’t want them to get their fifth in a row, so we were rushing things.”

Perhaps they had a sense of what might be coming. After playing the Beavers to a stand-still in the first quarter, Rangeley couldn’t stop Worcester in the second quarter.

Before they knew it, Worcester had the Lakers playing back on their heels.

“I feel like if we had our help-side we could have stopped her,” Esty said. “It was just the penetration into the paint that killed us. And we actually worked on that all week in practice. I don’t know what happened today. We just kind of backed off. I think we were so, ‘Oh, we can’t let her score’ that we were backing up and letting her get closer to the hoop.”

Deery tried mixing in a little zone defense to try to cool Worcester off while she torched the nets for 18 second-quarter points, but the Miss Maine Basketball semifinalist was just as deadly from the perimeter.

Deery was more frustrated that players such as Blayke Morin and Maddie Egan had to deal with foul trouble most of the day. That forced the Lakers to go to a young, untested bench more than they hoped to, which exacerbated their already alarming turnover totals (27 for the game).

“Against a team like that, you can’t take any breaks,” Deery said. “There’s a reason why they’ve won the state championship as many times as they have. They execute and they’ve got some great players.”

Fullcourt pressure has been Washburn’s calling card during the title run. Rangeley watched the tape and had the boys varsity try to simulate that pressure in practice.

But even when they would string a few clean offensive possessions together, the Lakers couldn’t come up with the key stop at the other end to make serious headway into Washburn’s cushion.

“We were going back and forth, but we just couldn’t solve Mackenzie Worcester,” said Esty, who was quite the mystery for Washburn herself (30 points).

The ending wasn’t what the Lakers envisioned after crushing the East/West Conference and dominating Western D, but in Rangeley, the season will be far more than a footnote in the record books.

“I’m really proud of how the season went, especially being my senior year,” said Esty, who is headed to Central Maine Community College to continue her playing career. “I’m proud to say that I’m Western Maine champion. That hasn’t happened since 2004, so I’m really proud to be able to say that. And, I bleed green and gold.”

Randy Whitehouse — 621-5638

rwhitehouse@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @RAWmaterial33

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