AUGUSTA — Hampden Academy’s Caitlin Murphy had a smile as wide as the Augusta Civic Center parking lot. Coach Nick Winchester, meanwhile, was fighting back tears.
Their reactions differed, but it was for the same reason: Victory.
A spirited defensive effort and some clutch free-throw shooting lifted third-seeded Hampden to a 42-38 win over No. 2 Cony in the Class A North girls basketball semifinals Wednesday at the Augusta Civic Center.
Aubrey Shaw scored 13 points for the Broncos, including a 4 for 4 effort from the free-throw line down the stretch. Teammate Grace LaBree added 12 points while dominating the lane with her 6-foot-4 presence.
Hampden (15-5) will face No. 4 Camden Hills for the regional title at 6 p.m. Friday in Augusta. Cony, which reached the A North final last season, finished 16-4.
Murphy doesn’t light up the stat sheets — she scored only four points, but two came on a key fourth-quarter basket that gave the Broncos some breathing room shortly after they took the lead for good. But as the team’s lone senior on a roster with a combined 10 freshmen and sophomores, she delivers more than a jumble of numbers.
“It’s surreal,” a beaming Murphy said. “I’ve been doing this since I was a little girl and it feels so good.”
Winchester also was reflective, albeit in a different way, after he congratulated Murphy.
“Heckuva game,” Winchester said as he gathered his emotions. “She’s just been a good leader. I’m happy for the senior.”
Abby Morrill scored a game-high 14 points for Cony.
How Hampden did it
• Hampden may have been emotional afterward, but it was coldly efficient during the game. The goal was to slow a Cony offense that cracked 6o points eight times over its last 10 games. The presence of LaBree — who missed the Broncos’ 58-40 loss to the Rams on Dec. 23 — helped Hampden “create havoc,” Winchester said. Hampden also held Cony to four 3-pointers after the Rams made nine in Friday’s 49-36 quarterfinal win over Skowhegan.
“I said to everybody, ‘If we give up more than 50 points, we can’t win,'” Winchester said. ” They just score the ball so well, so to hold them to the 30s is a defensive effort that … we couldn’t have drawn it up any better.”
Cony’s Kya Douin looks to dribble past Hampden Academy’s Mallory Lausier during a Class A North semifinal game Wednesday in Augusta. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel
Cony coach John Dennett, meanwhile, summed it up minimally: “They shot better than we did tonight. They played good defense on us, and we could not knock shots down.”
• Cony was hit by foul trouble as starters Abby Clark and Gabby Vachon fouled out in the fourth. Dennett said that was the first time any of his players had fouled out this season.
Key moments
• The lead changed hands five times in a furious third quarter when each side traded 3-pointers in the final two minutes. Eve Wiles’ triple with eight seconds left gave the Broncos the lead for good, and Murphy added a stop-and-pop bucket 19 seconds into the fourth.
• Morgan Fichthorn’s basket cut Cony’s deficit to 37-35 with 52 seconds left, but the Rams had to foul from there and Shaw sank four straight free throws. Katelyn Adams added another with 1.3 seconds left after Fichthorn’s 3 reduced Hampden’s lead to 41-38. Overall, Hampden shot 15 for 21 (71%) from the line.
“We’ve been a decent free-throw shooting team, but we’ve not been in the 70s most of the season,” Winchester said.
They said it
“We really just locked in and decided we didn’t want to go home. We kept our mindsets as, ‘We’re going to win this game, no matter what it takes.'” — Murphy
“It was an incredible season. I had two returning players from last year’s regional final team, I played four freshmen, two of them started, and then I had one senior who came back and hadn’t played since she was a freshman. It was a great season, nothing to hang our head over.” — Dennett
Statistical leaders
Hampden Academy: Shaw (13 points 5 for 5 from the free-throw line), LaBree (12 points).
Cony: Morrill (14 points), Fichthorn (nine points).
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