BANGOR — Second-seeded Winslow withstood a 14-0 fourth-quarter run by seventh-ranked Oceanside and pulled out a 46-40 victory in an Eastern Class B boys’ basketball quarterfinal Saturday at the Cross Insurance Center.

After watching Oceanside tie the game late in the fourth quarter, Winslow Coach Jared Browne watched his seniors secure the win.

“Our seniors, down the stretch, really stepped up,” Browne said.

Winslow (17-2) will face third-ranked Old Town (18-1) at 7:05 p.m. Wednesday at Bangor.

“We had to get our mind back on things and keep the hype going, and just stop them on defense. That’s what we did, eventually,” Winslow senior guard Colby Robertson said.

Trailing 37-23 in the first minute of the fourth quarter, the Mariners (13-7) went on their 14-0 run, tying the game on a pair of Nate Raye free throws with 4:01 to play.

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Winslow held a 20-18 lead at the half, then extended it in the third period on the hot hand of Robertson, who hit three 3-pointers in the quarter to score nine of his game-high 20 points.

“In the third quarter, it just looked like we didn’t care. We were just kind of going through the motions. We weren’t talking on screens. We let the Robertson kid get open and bomb some 3s,” Oceanside Coach Matt Breen said.

“In between the quarters, we talked about playing with a little bit of pride and fire, and making a run. We knocked down some shots; we just couldn’t get over the hump.”

Browne credited the Mariners with putting together their solid run.

“It looked bad when it was happening but they just hit shots. They came out of the flow of their offense and we contested them, they just made shots. They’re a good shooting team,” Browne said.

With the game score 40-40 with under a minute to play, senior guard Josh Kervin put the Black Raiders ahead for good, driving the lane for a layup with 46 seconds to play.

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After an Oceanside miss, Kervin made a pair of foul shots with 19.6 seconds remaining after Nick Mazurek was called for an intentional foul.

“That’s senior leadership. That’s three years on the team. (Kervin) took it into his hands to do that and hit some clutch free throws after that,” Browne said. “Our seniors really bailed us out when we were kind of struggling.”

Trenton Bouchard and Justin Martin each hit a free throw in the final 20 seconds to ice the victory.

Winslow made just 12 of 27 foul shots.

“I was concerned but we took a lot of free throws. We went to the line 27 times. We didn’t make that many but we kept going to it, and that was a big thing,” Browne said.

What wasn’t a concern was defense. The Black Raiders did an excellent job on the Mariners’ guard, with Kervin, Bouchard and Robertson badgering Oceanside point guard Keenan Hendricks the entire game. Inside, Bobby Chenard did a nice job defending the Mariners’ pick and roll.

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“Josh Kervin and Trenton Bouchard did a great job on Hendricks,” Browne said.

“They didn’t let him run the offense. They forced him into some tough looks, didn’t let him get to the rim. Our whole defense was outstanding.”

Winslow played most of the second quarter without Martin, the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class B Player of the Year and the team’s leading scorer.

Martin played just 20 seconds in the second period after picking up his third foul, but Robertson stepped up offensively, scoring eight points in the quarter as the Black Radiers turned an 11-8 deficit after one quarter into a 20-18 halftime lead.

“Not just me, I think the whole team had to step up a lot. When (Martin) goes down, it’s another step we have to go over,” Robertson said.


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