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PORTLAND — In previous years, the South Portland girls basketball team would have opened its championship pursuit on its home court. Coming out of its home locker room. In front of its home fans.

This year, with the Class A tournament’s first two rounds taking place at the Portland Expo, it’s different. But as junior guard Annie Whitmore said, there’s nothing wrong with that.

“It’s definitely a different vibe,” Whitmore said after scoring 19 points in a 43-31 victory over Westbrook. “But I love playing in packed gyms with all the noise. So I think that this was honestly a good switch for everyone.”

The switch came about as a result of the Maine Principals’ Association reclassifying after last season and nixing Class AA, with the large schools being moved into Class A. That means that, in the South region, the former AA schools go from playing at the higher seed’s home gym for quarterfinal games and at neutral sites from the semifinals on, to playing their entire tournament at bigger venues.

Sanford junior guard Paige Sevigny remembers playing her first playoff game two years ago, a home quarterfinal against Thornton Academy, and how it didn’t feel like a tournament game going in.

Tuesday afternoon at the Expo, also against Thornton Academy, was a different story.

“That (felt) like any other night,” said Sevigny, who scored 18 points in a 57-35 victory. “This setting just tells me ‘This is playoffs, I have to lock in.'”

This year, the road to the Gold Ball goes through the Expo for the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds, before heading to Cross Insurance Arena for the regional final.

For the girls teams in the A South tournament, a new building makes for a new tournament atmosphere. The lighting is brighter. There’s less space between the basket and the fans in back, creating a shooting backdrop closer to what the players see during the regular season.

“This one is definitely easier to adjust to,” said Biddeford sophomore guard Natalia Silva, who had 14 points in a 45-42 win over Windham. “It’s definitely harder to see the fans, see the crowd, even hear the crowd (at Cross Insurance Arena). It’s kind of like you’re isolated on an island, almost.”

At the Expo, however, the fans become part of the game.

“At the Cross Arena, it’s really like the spotlight’s on you,” Whitmore said. “The floor is kind of lower from the stands. … Everyone’s much closer to you than in the Cross Insurance Arena, so you feel the tension more.”

For some players, that creates a higher pressure environment. The Expo is smaller, with less than half Cross Insurance Arena’s seating capacity, but fills more. Cheers reverberate more with each made shot, steal, block or turnover. Momentum swings feel more pronounced. A six-point run can feel like a 16-point surge.

“The fans are definitely more on top of you,” said Sanford senior forward Ava Hudson, who along with her teammates made her Expo debut Tuesday. “Sometimes you feel, not alone on the court (at Cross Insurance Arena), it’s definitely loud, but you don’t really know where the noise is coming from. Here, you can definitely tell one side versus the other.”

South Portland senior Caleigh Corcoran said the Expo feels more “condensed.”

“You often hear your name from an individual parent or something, which is motivating,” she said. “When you score, it feels so much better to know you have so many people cheering for you, rather than at the Cross Insurance Arena, which feels pretty empty for those first couple of games.”

Sevigny added that the Expo is less intimidating than Cross Insurance Arena, which makes it easier for teams to feel relaxed and find a rhythm.

“This is more like a high school setting. Knowing that Portland plays here, they practice here, that definitely helps,” she said. “The Cross Arena is like, Cooper Flagg played there. Mackenzie Holmes played there. It’s a really big moment.”

Biddeford junior guard Jordyn Crump, like Silva, has played in close games in both venues: the overtime classic in the Class B final last year at Cross Insurance Arena, and Tuesday’s victory at the Expo that went down to the final minute.

“Both are great atmospheres to be in in close games,” she said. “The Expo is a lot more tight, so the noise is a lot more. The Cross has more of an echo. But both places are definitely tough to be in in a close game.”

As South Portland’s Corcoran put it, the pressure doesn’t go away wherever the games take place.

“It’s still nerve-wracking,” she said. “Because it’s a playoff game, and one loss, you’re out.”