AUGUSTA — After losing two close games against Oxford Hills during the regular season, the Brunswick girls’ basketball team had a good idea what it needed to do to spring an upset in the Eastern Class A tournament.
The sixth-seeded Dragons played hard-nosed defense and controlled the tempo on the way to a 37-32 win over the No. 3 Vikings in a regional quarterfinal Friday afternoon at the Augusta Civic Center.
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Semifinals at Augusta Civic Center
No. 6 Brunswick (12-7) vs. No. 2 Lawrence (18-1), 2:30 p.m. Wednesday
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Brunswick (12-7) will face No. 2 Lawrence at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Civic Center.
“This is such a good team win for us,” said Brunswick’s Julia Champagne, who scored all of her team-high 13 points in the second half. “We had such a good week of practices and that’s why we played the way we did today. Everyone contributed to this win in their own way. It’s such a great feeling.”
Champagne, who got her 1,000th career point in the final game of the regular season, fueled a 12-3 run with nine points in the third quarter. The surge enabled Brunswick to grab a 28-24 lead.
“I think Julia decided all of a sudden that she was a senior and there was 16 minutes to go,” Brunswick Coach Sam Farrell said. “She made a conscious effort that she wanted to play more (basketball).
Champagne, a 5-foot-7 guard, took just two shots in the first half.
“I wasn’t looking for the shot,” she said. “I was a little bit nervous coming out. Everyone was getting me the ball and they said ‘shoot,’ so I finally started shooting and they were going in.”
The Dragons led by as many as seven points in the fourth quarter, but Oxford Hills (15-4) pulled to within two when Anna Winslow sank two free throws with 1:51 left.
With 38 seconds to go, Emily Black’s two free throws made it 36-32.
“The goal was to score 36 (points) because we had given up 35 points (to them) both times and lost,” Farrell said.
“We tried to force the tempo. We set up that zone and made them move the ball, or (the game) would turn into a snooze-fest and that wasn’t for us.”
Mikayla Morin sank a 3-pointer with 11.7 seconds left in the first half to give Oxford Hills a 15-14 lead at the break. She led the Vikings with 10 points.
Oxford Hills started fast, sinking four of its first five shots for an 8-2 lead.
The Dragons’ defense stiffened after that. They forced 10 first-half turnovers to gradually get back into the game.
“They were able to put some pressure on the ball, and we turned it over a lot, more than we normally do, which was surprising to me,” Oxford Hills Coach Nate Pelletier said. “Usually, when a team traps us all over the place, we usually get layups. For some reason, their (defensive) press hurt us in the end.”
Madeline Suhr, a sophomore forward, scored eight of her 11 points in the first half for Brunswick.
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