AUGUSTA — It wasn’t the complete effort coach Nick Winchester was looking for, but Hampden Academy did enough in a 43-37 win over Brewer in a Class A North girls basketball quarterfinal Friday at the Augusta Civic Center.
The third-seeded Broncos (14-5) will face No. 2 Cony at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Augusta Civic Center. No 6 Brewer ends its season 6-13.
Grace LaBree, a 6-foot-4 junior, led Hampden with 15 points and seven rebounds. She scored seven points in the third quarter to give the Broncos a 33-14 lead with 2:29 remaining in the third.
Winchester noted how LaBree helped the Broncos kick into overdrive, as they ended the regular season 9-1 after a 4-4 start.
“A big part of that was her emergence in the middle of the floor,” he said. “We really just committed to playing the ball through the paint, getting touches on every possession and make teams react to her. We’ve got a really good group of shooters, so when people double down on her, and she’s a willing passer, we get a lot of open shots.”
If there was any cause for concern for Hampden, it was Brewer’s 10-0 run to end the game. And this wasn’t exactly garbage time: Both teams still had several starters on the floor. The Witches’ Rylee Bailey scored five of her team-high seven points during the run.
“This has sort of been the tale of our season, where we’ll play well in six-, eight-, 10-minute stretches,” Winchester said, “and then we’ll do what we did in the fourth quarter, when we got stuck on 43 and couldn’t execute anything. Our mantra all year is that we need to find a way to play a full 32 minutes, and we just haven’t done that. That’s sort of been our Achilles’ heel against the top teams in our conference.”
Caitlin Murphy added nine points and six rebounds for Hampden.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Join the Conversation
We believe it’s important to offer commenting on certain stories as a benefit to our readers. At its best, our comments sections can be a productive platform for readers to engage with our journalism, offer thoughts on coverage and issues, and drive conversation in a respectful, solutions-based way. It’s a form of open discourse that can be useful to our community, public officials, journalists and others. Read more...
We do not enable comments on everything — exceptions include most crime stories, and coverage involving personal tragedy or sensitive issues that invite personal attacks instead of thoughtful discussion.
For those stories that we do enable discussion, our system may hold up comments pending the approval of a moderator for several reasons, including possible violation of our guidelines. As the Maine Trust’s digital team reviews these comments, we ask for patience.
Comments are managed by our staff during regular business hours Monday through Friday and limited hours on Saturday and Sunday. Comments held for moderation outside of those hours may take longer to approve.
By joining the conversation, you are agreeing to our commenting policy and terms of use. More information is found on our FAQs.
You can modify your screen name here.
Show less
Join the Conversation
Please sign into your CentralMaine.com account to participate in conversations below. If you do not have an account, you can register or subscribe. Questions? Please see our FAQs.