Greely High faced a crossroads three weeks ago when it lost two straight games, including an upset at Marshwood.

Greely has bounced back. The top-seeded Rangers topped eighth-ranked Marshwood 63-50 in a Class A South boys’ basketball quarterfinal Friday night at the Portland Expo.

Ryan Twitchell led the Rangers with 18 points. Matt McDevitt added 16 points and 10 rebounds. Ben Beers scored 13 for Marshwood. Baili Lontine-Kearson of the Hawks had 12 points and 10 rebounds.

The Rangers (16-3) advanced to the semifinals against fourth-seeded Brunswick (14-5) at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Cross Insurance Arena.

Greely faced Brunswick on Dec. 11 and came away with a 62-59 victory. But regular-season games mean little now – just ask the Rangers, who had lost to Marshwood 66-52 on Jan. 22.

“They started our one bad week in the season and we learned from that,” Coach Travis Seaver said. “It was a good turning point.”

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Since then Greely has won four straight, including Friday night’s win, which featured good ball movement and shooting (42 percent to the Hawks’ 35 percent). Twitchell, a quick 6-foot-4 forward, found openings inside.

“We have a lot of guys who can do a lot of things, especially when we put Twitchell around the hoop. He can finish,” Seaver said.

“Marshwood is a very tough eighth seed because they’re physical and they match up height-wise with us. The biggest thing for us tonight is we kept our composure and found other ways to score.”

Meanwhile, Marshwood’s tight defense proved costly in a tightly officiated game. The Hawks were whistled for 26 fouls to Greely’s 10. The foul trouble especially hurt when veteran point guard Ryan O’Neil went to the bench with three fouls and 7:28 remaining in the second quarter.

O’Neil, a three-year starter who scored 23 points in the Hawks’ earlier upset of Greely, eventually fouled out, finishing with eight points.

“Having O’Neil out the second quarter was huge,” Marshwood Coach Mike Zamarchi said. “It was a tough one. We’re a physical team and they’re more a finesse team. But the kids played hard. We got it down to six with about 1:30 to go.”

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Beers’ 3-pointer closed the Hawks to 56-50, but Calvin Soule of Greely connected on two free throws and Marshwood never scored again.

Jordan Bagshaw finished with nine points and four assists for the Rangers. Caleb Normandeau added six points and three assists. The Rangers hit five 3-pointers, four by McDevitt.

Kevin Thomas can be reached at 791-6411 or:

kthomas@pressherald.com

Twitter: @KevinThomasPPH


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