AUGUSTA — Third-seeded Medomak Valley made up for a slow start at the offensive end of the court with a solid defensive performance and rolled to a 48-31 win against No. 2 Brewer in a Class A North boys’ basketball semifinal Wednesday night at the Augusta Civic Center.

The Panthers, who won the Eastern Class B championship last season, will play Oceanside for the regional title Saturday in Augusta. Oceanside upset No. 1 Hampden Academy in the other semifinal.

The Panthers missed their first 11 shots, but their hard-nosed defense and rebounding made it difficult for the Witches to take advantage.

“When we’re shooting like that we have to make up for it down in the defensive end, which I thought we did,” said Nicholas DePatsy, who scored 14 of his game-high 15 points during the second half. “We controlled the defensive glass. We got our runouts.”

“It’s a game of players and our players didn’t have their best day,” Brewer Coach Clayton Blood said. “They really shut us down defensively. “

After the slow start, the Panthers found their shooting touch and sank seven of their next nine shots to open a 17-7 lead with 4:15 left in the second quarter.

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Medomak Valley (17-3) held a 19-10 lead at the end of the first half, limiting Brewer to five points in each of the first two quarters.

“We pride ourselves on our defense,” DePatsy said. “We work hard every day on our defense, and offense is just a secondary thing. We like to run on our runouts and get transition points.”

Medomak Valley extended the lead to 26-15 less than four minutes into the second half, but Brewer finished the third quarter with a 7-3 run to close the gap to seven points.

The Witches (15-5) got no closer, as the Panthers opened the fourth quarter with a 12-2 run.

Cameron Allaire and Kyle Donlin each scored 11 points for the Panthers, who didn’t play Brewer during the regular season.

Kobe Rogerson, who sank four 3-pointers, led the Witches with 14 points.

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“We missed a lot of shots early, but defensively we just had the right game plan and it worked,” Medomak Valley Coach Nick DePatsy said. “If we defended and didn’t let them get to the rim and get to their shooters and keep (Matt) Pushard off the boards, I thought we would be in good shape. We did all of that.”

“(Medomak Valley was) well prepared and big and strong, and that really took a toll,” Blood said. “We just couldn’t rebound, and we couldn’t get the ball inside.”

“We’re always defense and getting the rebounds, runouts and fast breaks,” said Nick DePatsy.

The Panthers sank eight of 11 shots in the fourth quarter to put the game out of reach.

“It was kind of a sloppy game I thought,” Nicholas DePatsy said. “Credit our defense.”


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