Imagine Cheverus or Bangor or Valley of Bingham (if they had a hockey team) or some other “basketball” school holding a special screening of the movie “Miracle” on the eve of a big game.

That’s what the atmosphere was like Friday when St. Dom’s, where pucks are king, screened the movie “Hoosiers” for the entire student body as its 14-2 basketball team prepared for today’s quarterfinal tilt with Boothbay.

“When you have a school that’s been dominated by hockey every winter, it’s nice to have the whole school jumping on board for the basketball team,” said Saints’ co-coach Dan DeBruin. “This is new territory for us.”

St. Dom’s doesn’t hold a monopoly on Hoosiers themes going into the tournament. Twelfth-seeded Livermore Falls, owner of a less than staggering 6-13 record, has already pulled off one Hickoryesque upset by defeating No. 5 Telstar in the preliminaries. Jay, meanwhile, seems to have stolen a plot twist from the movie with a crucial midseason addition. A la Jimmy Chitwood, Sean Fry, a transfer student from South Carolina, has made the Tigers a more complete team.

“The new kid, Sean, comes in and fits into the program very well. He’s a great athlete,” said Jay coach Mike Child, who got the job one day before the preseason started. “But with this program, it’s not about one

or two guys, it’s about the

word ‘team,’ and it’s worked great.”

Maybe someone will pull out the measuring tape and check the height of the baskets at Augusta Civic Center just to complete the parallels.

Favorites: Hall-Dale and Jay. It’s fitting that the two top seeds have been either the most consistent team this season (Hall-Dale) or the hottest team heading into the tournament (Jay). The Bulldogs went 16-2 and proved their mettle by beating Mountain Valley, a Class B semifinalist, in the Mountain Valley Conference championship last week. The Tigers, also 16-2, have won 13 in a row. Their last loss was to Hall-Dale back on Dec. 22.

Darkhorses: St. Dom’s and Georges Valley. As one of only two Western Maine Conference teams in the tournament, the Saints are a bit of an unknown commodity. But then, they’re used to being overlooked coming from one of the elite hockey schools in the state. Their 14-2 mark set a school record, and their schedule included a handful of Class B teams. Though this is their first trip to Augusta in several years, they start five seniors and boast one of the headiest floor leaders in Class C in point guard Ian Pullen,

The Buccaneers entered this year as one of the favorites in Western C, but injuries and a four-game losing streak late in the season kept them out of the top three seeds. Their starting five, led by Brett Hutchinson, A.J. Staples and David Wilgus, is as talented as any in the field and has tons of post-season experience. Their only question mark coming in is depth.

Players to watch: Livermore Falls – G Brad Bryant, F Mike Chamard; Madison – C Randy McMullen, G Matt Stewart; Old Orchard Beach – G Corey Smith, F Jesse Allen; Boothbay – G Ben Stover, F Mike Norton; Georges Valley – C Brett Hutchinson, F A.J. Staples; St. Dom’s – G Ian Pullen, F Chris Rainville; Jay – G Justin Wells, F Sean Fry; Hall-Dale – C Matt Wheelock, G Ben Laflin.

Best quarterfinal matchup: No. 6 Boothbay vs. No. 3 St. Dom’s. All four quarterfinal matchups could be barn-burners, but this one has several factors that make it so intriguing. First, you’ve got two teams who haven’t played each other, so in-game adjustments will be crucial. Second, you’ve got Boothbay, a tournament staple, with a coach in I.J. Pinkham, who has coached for 28 years, going up against tournament newbies in St. Dom’s, co-coached by two of the youngest coaches in the state in Dan DeBruin and Mike Gray.

Boothbay is, as usual, one of the most physical teams in the field. While the they aren’t as dominant as they once were, the Seahawks are just as blue-collar and workmanlike. The Saints, on the other hand, are a team of spurts and emotion, a perimeter-oriented club that needs to adapt to the cavernous Augusta Civic Center quickly.

“Being a team that depends heavily on their outside shooters, for us to start out 0-for-5 or 0-for-6 from the 3-point line, we’d be digging ourselves quite a hole,” DeBruin said. “We’re a team that thrives off highs and lows. Emotions will be flying high, so we’ve talked about getting subs in quicker so (the starters) can come out and get a look at the game from the bench and settle down.”

Overview: The depth of the field suggests the potential is high for more than the customary one upset we usually see in the quarterfinals. Livermore Falls has already pulled off a shocker, why not another? Madison has gradually improved as the season went on and is a very dangerous team. Old Orchard has one of the more explosive players in the tournament in Corey Smith, and Boothbay is Boothbay, not to be counted out until it is on the low end of the scoreboard and the final buzzer has sounded.

That having been said, the top seeds are very, very tough. None is tougher than Hall-Dale, which has won in every conceivable fashion this year, has the tourney’s biggest player (and biggest X factor) in 6-9 Matt Wheelock, and is coming off a confidence-boosting win over one of the top teams in Class B. St. Dom’s is capable of getting hot from the outside and has an underrated scrapper in the low post in Chris Rainville. Georges Valley has the talent to beat anybody. But the pick here is Jay. The Tigers already had a talented team before Fry joined them during Christmas break. They haven’t lost since he cracked the starting lineup. They have a knack for forcing turnovers with their defensive pressure and they’re the best running team in the tournament, an important asset to have in the spacious Civic Center. But they also have the size (Fry, Zach Charles, Marc Kelvey) and the shooters (Kelvey, Ryan DiPompo and Justin Wells) to play, and win, in a halfcourt game.

Prediction: Jay

Copy the Story Link