AUGUSTA - How could perfect be more perfect?

Safe to assume that Buckfield's picture of that logical impossibility would have involved beating Hyde School in the Western Class D girls' basketball tournament.

Badly.

"Every time someone says Hyde's name, we're like, 'Don't say that.' It's a bad memory," said Kasey Farrington, one of three seniors wearing a necklace of net strands around Augusta Civic Center on Saturday afternoon.

Maybe you've had this experience in your life, and it has nothing to do with basketball.

You've endured a painful breakup and lived to tell about a new relationship. You're living a dream. Every day is wine, roses, and pure bliss. Yet there's a place in the deepest recesses of your vengeful mind that wonders how your ex is doing and prays that the answer is utterly miserable.

Hyde's overtime win over Buckfield in the 2007 semifinals is that if-they-could-only-see-us-now moment for the Bucks. Trouble is, the Maine Principals' Association moved the Phoenix up to Class C this year along with Hebron, Kents Hill and Gould Academy.

"We still watch the game today," Farrington admitted. "We do wish we could have played them. It would have been revenge on them."

Not that the last five days were a bad consolation prize. Robbed of the opportunity to avenge last year's indignity, Buckfield merely took out a year of frustration on Seacoast Christian, Richmond and Vinalhaven by an average of 29 points to waltz off with the school's first regional title since 1990.

And let's get one thing straight: Buckfield would have run Hyde off the court this year. Twenty-one and zip has nothing to do with a pared-down Western D lineup that now resembles an East-West Conference invitational.

Invite every prep, parochial and magnet school from here to Coburn Gore to trot out its five best female athletes, and they're still no competition for the team that awakened a dormant championship tradition this week.

"Every year we've made it one step further," said senior Alyssa Henderson. "We wanted to do this year, and we lost, but we knew we were going to get it back this year."

It's easy to express such ebullience when you're smoking everybody.

Buckfield escaped Forest Hills with a five-point win. That one deserves a disclaimer. Unless some rich alumnus commissioned a complete rebuild of the Jackman gym since my one and only visit half a lifetime ago, it's not unlike playing a pick-up game in your living room.

Twenty other wins have come by double digits. Valley took advantage of Buckfield's worst first half of the season to lead the Bucks (Does? Fawns?) by nine. The Lady Deer won, going away. Tied at halftime with North Yarmouth Academy, Buckfield went on to paste the Panthers on the road.

Average game score during this spotless season to date: Buckfield 58, Innocent Victims 27.

"I think our practices were pretty much our toughest games," Henderson stated flatly.

Co-coaches Troy Eastman and Dan Jack also did their best to venture outside EWC small-town limits, whenever possible.

That battle plan included an ambitious, 18-game summer schedule. In the week leading up to the tournament, Buckfield scrimmaged Class C top seed Madison and eventual semifinalist St. Dom's (which had the privilege of jettisoning Hyde from the tournament). They've played and practiced against Eastern Class A champion Oxford Hills, too.

"I don't know if it's testing or keeping ourselves in check," Eastman said of those brave but humbling experiences. "It kept us grounded."

With Oxford Hills and Lake Region not far up the road and still alive in their tournaments, Eastman is already contemplating those potential mid-week challenges.

It would be a wise way to prepare for Eastern champ Woodland, which owns five of the last eight regional titles and looks to add a fourth Gold Ball to its trophy case.

Eastern Maine has won 13 of the last 17 Class D crowns since Buckfield last put its fingerprints on the big trophy. That win, like next week's state final, was here at the civic center.

"We love this gym," Farrington said. "This is pretty much home to us."

22-0.

That would improve perfection, wouldn't it? Hyde or no Hyde.

Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. His e-mail is koakes@sunjournal.com.