Ryan Petrin shot the lights out at the Augusta Civic Center on Saturday with 38 points in Forest Hills’ 79-48 Western D quarterfinal win over North Yarmouth Academy.

Part of the reason for that offensive explosion was Petrin and seven of his teammates spent a week of last summer in central Maine, almost literally shooting the lights out.

Forest Hills coach Anthony Amero, a Monmouth native, invited eight of his players to join him at his camp in Monmouth. But the kids didn’t just pack their swim trunks and fishing poles. They were there to work on basketball.

“We called it ‘Camp Cottage,'” Amero said. “We took the top eight kids in the program down. My poor wife had to cook for the week.”

The Tigers probably came to the dinner table very hungry. They spent up to 10 hours each day at Central Maine Community College in Auburn, where Amero enlisted CMCC coach Dave Gonyea for help on improving his team’s offensive output.

“We wanted to be a better shooting team than last year. Last year, we struggled for offense in a lot of games,” Amero said.

Gonyea suggested the Tigers take shots. Lots and lots of shots.

“Our goal was to make 5,000 shots in four days,” Amero said. “We were doing eight to 10 hours a day that entire week on shooting and skills. We worked on shooting form the first day and then the next four days, we just shot, shot, shot. It was a marathon.”

“Towards the end of the week, it was getting rough,” said Petrin, a senior forward. “We were up at, I think, 7 o’clock every morning.”

Despite the long hours, Petrin said “Camp Cottage” was a rewarding experience, on and off the court.

“It’s made us a lot better shooters,” Petrin said. “All four seniors, we’re not afraid to shoot. If we have an open look, we’re shooting it.”

“It was definitely fun,” Petrin said. “I was glad that I did it with this group of seniors.”

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At this time of the season, if you can walk, you’ll find your way on to the court and you’ll play. Such was the case for Oceanside starters Nick Mazurek and Jarrod Leonardi. Both played through ankle injuries in Saturday’s 46-40 Eastern Class B quarterfinal loss to Winslow.

Mazurek injured his ankle late in the Mariners’ preliminary round win over Foxcroft. Leonardi missed the last three games, Oceanside coach Matt Breen said.

“He probably shouldn’t have been out there, but he was a senior and I wasn’t going to hold him back,” Breen said.

Mazurek had seven points and six rebounds for Oceanside, while Leonardi had two points and two boards.

The Mariners were not the only ones to play through injuries Saturday, as Messalonskee dealt with its fair share of bumps and bruises in a 58-42 Eastern A quarterfinal win over Oxford Hills.

There was no scarier moment for the Eagles than when senior star Nick Mayo went down with an ankle injury early in the fourth quarter.

On the play teammate Taylor Turner drove to the basket for a layup but slipped on the takeoff, falling to the floor just underneath the basket. Mayo swooped in to tip in the shot and when he came down he landed on Turner, rolling his ankle with 6 minutes, 55 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter.

After staying down for a few moments, he was helped to his feet and walked back to the locker room under his own power. Fortunately for the Eagles it was not too be too serious as he returned to the court a few minutes later, drawing a loud cheer from the Messalonskee fans.

“I just tweaked it a little bit,” Mayo said. “It’s fine. I’ll be good to go.”

There were a handful of occasions where a number of Messalonskee and Oxford Hills players were left wincing Saturday, but that comes with the territory of postseason basketball.

“We’re a tough team. I tell the guys that practice is designed to be physical and practices are up tempo. We bang quite a bit,” Messalonskee coach Peter McLaughlin said. “We knew it was going to be a battle playing Oxford Hills this season, we knew it wasn’t going to be easy.

“Yes, there’s bumps and bruises but I think that’s tournament time. When you play with your heart sometimes there’s some hard fouls and those types of things, but it’s also part of basketball. That just sort of comes with it.”

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When it comes to headlines about the Messalonskee boys basketball team, Nick Mayo gets most of them.

The 6-foot-8 Eastern Kentucky commit has put up some eye-popping numbers this season and is a big part of his team’s success. He is not the only one though.

Jack Bernatchez garnered the same type of attention last fall as the football team’s star running back, but on the basketball court he has a different role.

“He’s kind of the person nobody ever hears about,” McLaughlin said. “He’s probably our best defender on the team. Mayo gets the big blocks and the big rebounds and everything, but Jack is really a guy that we put on the best player on the other team and really look for him to have an influence.”

Bernatchez was at his best Saturday evening when guarding Oxford Hills’ top player, Andrew Fleming. A 6-foot-6, left-handed guard, Fleming finished with just 12 points, committed six turnovers and was constantly in foul trouble.

“He kept him aggravated and off-balance, really contested shots at all times and allowed Mayo to kind of float and alter shots along the rim,” McLaughlin said. “That was our gameplan and it worked out really well for us.”

“He loves his left hand and I was just trying to keep that away from him,” Bernatchez added.

• • •

There have been a number of teams that got off to slow starts at the Augusta Civic Center, and it is easy to see why.

The Civic Center dwarfs most high school gyms that players are accustomed to playing in, which makes for an adjustment period — particularly at the offensive end.

“It’s different than playing in your traditional gymnasium,” Richmond senior Cameron Emmons said. “The floor is a little bit bigger and having such a huge amount of open space behind the basket definitely throws off your depth perception.”

In addition to the size of the court and space behind the basket, there are also two 3-point lines on the floor. One is the white, regulation high school line 19 feet, nine inches from the basket and the other is in black one foot further away for college.

While the white line is used for high school games, a lot of players still wind up shooting from behind the black line and in the process add a few extra feet to the 3-pointers they are used to shooting.

“Having the extra line out there, you don’t want to say it helps throw you off but at times you do find yourself tending to drift towards that line,” Emmons said. “We just think of it as the furthest line back is our 3-point line so that (college) line does throw you off a little bit.”