PITTSFIELD — Before the start of the school year, Maine Central Institute senior Mitchell Hallee set a couple athletic goals for himself. One was to help get MCI’s football team to the state championship game. Another was to help the Huskies’ basketball team reach the Eastern Class B quarterfinals in Bangor for the first time since 2007.

With Wednesday night’s 43-28 preliminary round win over Hermon, Hallee can cross another goal off his list. The No. 8 Huskies, now 13-6, will face No. 1 Medomak Valley (16-2) at the Cross Insurance Center on Saturday at 4:35 p.m. No. 9 Hermon ends the season at 12-7.

“Coming into the year, one of my goals was to make it to the state championship game in football at Fitzpatrick, and my second one was to go to the Cross Center, and it’s come true,” Hallee said.

The key to MCI’s win was an exceptional defensive effort, and nothing the Huskies did was fancy. MCI played tough man-to-man defense the entire game, making it difficult for the Hawks to find open shots. The win was the ninth in the last 10 games for the Huskies.

“We’re a team that’s trying to brand ourselves as a defensive team. We made enough shots tonight. We knew we were up against a team that was going to defend us. It was about whether we could hit some shots,” MCI coach Josh Tardy said. “I’m sure they were nervous. Heck, I was nervous. But I’m proud of how they stepped up, and they kept making stops and rebounding the basketball, and eventually the game ended and we had more points. It wasn’t rocket science. It was trying to get to the end.”

The Huskies’ offense primarily came from senior guard Todor Imsir, an international student from Serbia. Imsir scored 16 of his game-high 24 points in the first half as MCI built a 22-8 halftime lead.

“It was more intense than the other games in the regular season. We did our best and we executed,” Imsir, who made four 3-pointers, said. “I listened to Coach (Tardy). He says all the time, ‘Stick and lift.’ The first shot came in, and the second, and I just kept shooting.”

Hermon went six and half minutes over the second and third quarters without scoring, but the Hawks rallied to cut MCI’s lead to seven points, 28-21, late in the third quarter, on back-to-back threes by AJ Hawes and Tyler Beaton. MCI went on a 7-3 run to push the lead back to double digits, 35-23, with just under four minutes left. When Hermon cut the deficit to seven points again, the Huskies closed the game with an 8-0 run.

Halle said the defensive effort was the result of old fashioned hustle.

“All five of us, we were in the right position. We were moving as a team. We went straight up man,” Hallee, who grabbed seven rebounds, said. “We were going to go hard basketball, like in the old days… No switches, just fight through the screens, and that’s what we did.”

Added Imsir, who had a pair of steals: “I was pretty satisfied with our defense. We didn’t change a lot. We didn’t have a reason to change.”

Austin Tolman had seven points and seven rebounds for MCI. Beaton led Hermon with nine points, while Joe Plummer added eight.

Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242

tlazarczyk@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @TLazarczykMTM