The 10 a.m. start might not have been to its liking, but the Yarmouth boys’ basketball team eventually hit its stride in a Class B South quarterfinal Saturday against Maranacook at the Portland Expo.

The third-seeded Clippers trailed the Black Bears early, but behind the energy of Ashanti Haywood and poise of Jonny Torres, they rallied to take the lead in the second quarter and pulled away in the second half for a 43-33 victory.

“We haven’t played a good first quarter all year, and I didn’t think at 10 o’clock this morning we’d have a good one today,” said Yarmouth Coach Adam Smith. “We did play great defense and offensively, we got into a flow and we started to run. We got the cobwebs out and got used to the team we were playing.”

No. 6 Maranacook started fast, thanks to 3-pointers from Cashman McClure, Mitch Root, Jackson McPhedran and Silas Mohlar, and took a 13-7 lead to the second quarter.

Then Yarmouth (13-6) awakened, as a layup after a steal by Haywood sparked the comeback. Torres added a 3-pointer and a layup to give the Clippers their first lead.

“I’m used to us being down,” said Torres, who led all scorers with 16 points. “We know how to deal with adversity. That’s what I love about this team. We have 14 guys who can go out and compete each and every night.”

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Torres capped Yarmouth’s run with another 3-pointer before Mohlar answered with a long 3 to cut the Black Bears’ deficit to 22-18 at halftime.

The Clippers pushed their lead to 11 in the third quarter after a jumper from Noah Eckersley-Ray, but a putback from Skyler Boucher pulled Maranacook within eight, 31-23, heading to the fourth quarter.

Then, a layup and free throw from Torres stretched the lead to 13 and Yarmouth never looked back.

“We just went out and played our game,” said Haywood, who finished with 11 points. “We had to focus on defending the 3-point line more. We weren’t worried about them going inside. Our mindset was stopping the 3 and hitting our shots, and it would be fine.”

Eckersley-Ray added eight points and a dozen rebounds.

Yarmouth advances to meet No. 2 Cape Elizabeth (12-7) in a semifinal at 6 p.m. Thursday at Cross Insurance Arena.

“We said going into the tournament, 1 through 8 had an opportunity to win this thing,” Smith said. “We’ll continue to grind … Thursday. We anticipated that matchup (against Cape Elizabeth) at some point. It’s going to be tough and we know it.”

Maranacook (13-6), which made just four two-point field goals and hit seven 3s, was paced by 10 points from Mohlar and nine from McClure.

“We knew if we hit (3-point) shots, we had a really good chance to win, and if we were off, we weren’t going to beat them,” said Maranacook Coach Rob Schmidt. “(Yarmouth is) an outstanding defensive team. We didn’t get the quality shots we normally get, and the ones we did (get) didn’t go in.”


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