Many Eastern Maine coaches have led teams to Bangor to the regional quarterfinals, only to be spooked off their games by the surroundings and noise of the Bangor Auditorium. The tournaments are now at the Cross Insurance Center, and when the ninth-seeded Gardiner girls defeated No. 1 Mt. Desert Island on Saturday, the Tigers looked as loose as if they were playing in Gardiner.

“I feel like the atmosphere in the (Cross Center) is so different,” Gardiner coach Mike Gray said. “I feel like you walk out, and it’s a really nice gym — as opposed to the old gym, which can be really intimidating.”

Gardiner won that game 62-50 and now faces No. 4 Camden Hills at 3:35 p.m. Wednesday in the regional semifinals.

The thing about our team, we haven’t been fazed by anything,” Gray said. “We didn’t even talk about, ‘Don’t worry about the size of the building or the size of the crowd.’ They just went out and treated it like any other Saturday.”

• • •

Cony’s first appearance in the Eastern A quarterfinals since 2010 didn’t turn out as the Rams or their fans at the Augusta Civic Center hoped.

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Monday’s stunning 89-50 quarterfinal loss to No. 4 Lewiston, the Rams’ third defeat at the hands of the Blue Devils this year, tested Cony’s resolve, especially as shot after shot rimmed out for the Rams and the Blue Devils started pulling away in the second half.

“I thought our guys still competed and played hard,” second-year Cony coach T.J. Maines said. “They didn’t give in. I feel really bad, because we’re better than we showed. I feel badly for them because they really had a good year and they weren’t able to show that on the biggest stage where they wanted to.”

What shouldn’t be lost in the disappointing ending to the season is that the Rams finished 11-8, their best record since 2009, and a virtual reversal of last year’s 7-11 mark.

The key to the turnaround was a second year in Maines’ up-tempo system, the emergence of junior T.J. Cusick as a consistent scoring threat, and the leadership of five senior captains — Mitchell Caron, Tayler Carrier, Ben Leet, Liam Stokes and Tyler Tardiff.

“They’re just absolutely great kids,” Maines said. “I feel really good about the direction that our program is going in. In two years, we got ourselves back here. The youth program’s going great. People are coming to games. We had great fan support today. And a lot of that has to do with the seniors.”

“When I look back, I’ll say it’s this senior group that laid this foundation,” Maines added. “I didn’t have to worry about whether guys were going to be focused and ready to practice every day, because they were,” Maines said. “They had great leadership and they were just good people. I feel terrible I couldn’t give them more today, that they couldn’t have a better experience than what they just had.”


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